Policy & Regulation

Organ Trafficking: Court finds Ekweremadu, wife, doctor guilty

Published

6 months ago

March 23, 2023

Organ Trafficking: Court finds Ekweremadu, wife, doctor guilty

A six-week trial at the Old Bailey has led to a guilty verdict for former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice, and medical doctor Dr. Obinna Obeta for their involvement in organ trafficking in the United Kingdom.

On Thursday, a jury found that the defendants had criminally plotted to bring a 21-year-old street trader from Lagos to London with the intention of exploiting him for his kidney.

The UK Guardian reports that the judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, will announce the sentence at a later date.

Ekweremadu, Beatrice, their daughter, Sonia, and Obeta had been standing trial at the Old Bailey for organ trafficking.

Their conviction on Thursday was the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.

Ekweremadu and his wife were last year arrested in the United Kingdom for allegedly trafficking a young man into the country to harvest his kidney.

Reports indicated that Ekweremadu’s family had attempted to use false information to convince doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in London to perform an £80,000 private procedure, claiming that the young man was a cousin to Sonia.

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The young man was said to have been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for Sonia after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University.

The prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, stated that Ekweremadus and Obeta had taken advantage of the man and other potential donors, treating them as expendable tools to be exploited for a financial reward.