The UK court has found guilty and convicted the former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu; his wife Beatrice and their doctor for organ trafficking, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
It was gathered that Ekweremadu who is 60 years; his wife, Beatrice, 56; and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, 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 court put it to them that they criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found, as disclosed by the UK Guardian.
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 they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.
To this end, Davies told the jury that, the behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”.
(Niger Delta Today)