Why Ekweremadu & Wife Were Convicted In UK
Posted on March 23, 2023
Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, alongside Dr Obinna Obeta, have been convicted of organ trafficking, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
They were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.
The prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, told the Court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”.
He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.
Davies added: “What he agreed to do was not simply expedient in the clinical interests of his daughter, Sonia, it was exploitation, it was criminal. It is no defence to say he acted out of love for his daughter. Her clinical needs cannot come at the expense of the exploitation of somebody in poverty”.
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