A Nigerian senator who coaxed a Lagos street trader to the UK to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter was sentenced to nine years and eight months in jail by a London judge, in the first conviction of its kind under Britain’s modern slavery laws.
(Bloomberg) — A Nigerian senator who coaxed a Lagos street trader to the UK to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter was sentenced to nine years and eight months in jail by a London judge, in the first conviction of its kind under Britain’s modern slavery laws.
Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice were on trial for conspiring between August 2021 and May 2022 to bring a man from Nigeria to London for surgery to transfer the organ to their 25-year-old daughter Sonia, who suffers from a kidney condition.
“People trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery,” said Judge Jeremy Johnson at the sentencing Friday. “It’s a trade that preys on poverty and misery and desperation.”
Beatrice was sentenced to four and a 1/2 years, while Obinna Obeta, described by prosecutors as a “medically qualified middle-man” who helped the family, got 10 years. Sonia was acquitted at the trial.
During the trial, the jury was told that an agreement was struck for the kidney donation in return for a fee and the promise of work in the UK. The group pretended the man and Sonia were cousins and coached him to give false answers to doctors at a London hospital. The transplant never took place after medical staff blocked it from going ahead.
Although it’s not illegal to donate an organ in the UK, it’s illegal to do so for a payment or reward. This was the first case of its kind under the country’s modern slavery laws.
“I would never had agreed to any of this, my body was not for sale,” the victim, who can’t be named, said in a statement read out in court. “I can’t think of going back to Nigeria. These people are extremely powerful and I worry for my safety.”
Ekweremadu’s senate seat will end when the current term finishes later this month. He did not participate in the February 2023 election and another politician won his seat.
Spokespeople for the Nigerian justice ministry and the senate didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
–With assistance from William Clowes.
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