UK jails Nigerian politician over kidney theft plot,A court on Friday jailed Nigeria’s former deputy senate president for nine years and eight months, following his landmark conviction for plotting to harvest a man’s kidney for his sick daughter.
Judge Jeremy Johnson sentenced Ike Ekweremadu, 60, to prison in the first instance of its sort to occur in the United Kingdom for his involvement in a “despicable trade” that profited from the “poverty, misery, and desperation” of weak individuals.
“People-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery,” the judge at London’s Old Bailey criminal court said as he handed down the jail term.
“It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold,” he added, noting the sentence represented a “substantial fall from grace” for Ekweremadu.
The multi-millionaire Nigerian politician was found guilty in March of conspiring to traffic the young street trader into Britain for his body part.
Also convicted were Ekweremadu’s wife Beatrice, 56, and Obinna Obeta, 50, a doctor who acted as a middleman in the plot.
Obeta received a 10-year sentence, while Beatrice Ekweremadu received a four-and-a-half-year sentence.
Sonia, the 25-year-old daughter of the Ekweremadus, sobbed after she was acquitted of the same crime in March following a roughly 14-hour jury deliberation.
She waved at her parents on Friday as they were escorted out the court. As they were being sentenced, neither of them displayed any emotion.
In Britain, kidney donation is permitted but not for monetary or material gain.
First organ harvesting charges
It was the first time organ harvesting conspiracy charges had been brought under the UK’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act.
The maximum sentence under the legislation is life imprisonment.
Detective Inspector Esther Richardson from the Metropolitan Police’s Modern Slavery and Exploitation Command called it a “landmark conviction” and thanked the victim for his bravery in coming forward.
During the weeks-long trial, the anonymous 21-year-old victim from Lagos testified that the Ekweremadus had flown him to Britain to harvest his kidney.
The kidney was said to be intended for Sonia, who remains on dialysis with a renal condition, in return for up to £7,000 ($8,800).
The man said he had been recruited by a doctor working for the politician and had thought he was coming to the UK to work.
The court was told he only realised it was for a kidney transplant when he was taken to London’s Royal Free Hospital last year.
He fled and slept on the streets for three days after doctors there told him he would not be a suitable donor following preliminary tests.
He eventually walked into a police station last May and said he was looking for someone to save his life.
Nigeria’s parliament appeals
Lawyers for the four accused had insisted he was acting “altruistically” and Ike Ekweremadu told jurors that he feared he was being “scammed”.
Ekweremadu has represented the Enugu West constituency in southeast Nigeria for the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) since 2003.
Leaders in Nigeria’s parliament this week appealed to the London court for clemency, arguing Ekweremadu was a first-time offender who had made valuable contributions to politics in West Africa.
He did not contest Nigeria’s recent national assembly elections as he was in custody before and during the trial.
The trial judge agreed with prosecutors that he could try to flee the UK. His wife and daughter had been out on conditional bail.
Around 20 people a day in Britain are diagnosed with kidney failure, necessitating prolonged dialysis treatment and around 7,000 are waiting for a transplant from a suitable donor.
“Informed consent is a vital part of the organ donation programme and thorough checks are made to ensure there is no coercion,” Fiona Loud, policy director at the charity Kidney Care UK, told AFP.
“Voluntary donors engage in an act of great generosity,” she said.
