Ike Ekweremadu, who was the former Deputy President of the Nigerian senate, his wife Beatrice, and their middleman doctor, Obinna Obeta, were found guilty of trafficking in human organs in March. Their conviction was the first of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act, and today they will all be sentenced.
Obeta, 51, Ekweremadu, 60, and his wife Beatrice, 56, were found guilty of conspiring to arrange the travel of a young man named David Nwamini to Britain in order to take advantage of him for a kidney that the lawmaker's sick daughter Sonia needed.
The Ekweremadus and their doctor may have to deal with the harsh reality of a potential 10-year prison sentence after a six-week trial and conviction at the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court. They did this by breaking the Modern Slavery Act. a judge. Judge Jeremy Johnson will impose the punishment.
Remember how the prosecutor, Hugh Davies KC, claimed in court that Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as "disposable assets - spare parts for reward"?
He claimed that they had an " Emotionally cold commercial transaction" with the man that was.
According to Davies, who told the jury that "Entitlement, dishonesty, and hypocrisy" were displayed by Ekweremadu,
He said Ekweremadu, who is in possession of 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 contactâ€.
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.â€
Ekweremadu, who refuted the accusation, claimed in court that he was a victim of fraud. The man was not given a reward for his kidney, according to Obeta, who also refuted the accusation, and he was acting out of altruism. Beatrice vehemently denied knowing anything about the alleged conspiracy. Sonia didn't offer any testimony.
Nigeria's Senate, House of Representatives, and Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) sent letters to British authorities in recent days pleading for leniency for the troubled lawmaker. Before this, Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, wrote to the British authorities to make a case for the legislator.