- Your Offence So Serious that Neither Fine Nor Community Sentence Can Be Justified – Judge
NIGERIA’s former Deputy Senate President, his wife Beatrice, and medical facilitator, Obinna Obeta, who were found guilty in March – for conspiring to traffic a market trader from Lagos to the United Kingdom (UK) for the purpose of harvesting his kidney – have been sentenced to various terms in British jail, reports SkyNews.
Despite pleas from various segments of the Nigerian government, Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in jail, while his wife, Beatrice, was sentenced to four years and six months jail term.
The medical doctor who served as the “middleman”, Dr Obeta, received a 10-year prison term.
The trio were jailed for conspiring to traffic a market trader to the UK to harvest his kidney.
Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, and 25-year-old daughter Sonia stood trial accused of a conspiracy to bring the man to Britain from Lagos for his organ.
The couple, along with medical “middleman” Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, were found guilty in the Old Bailey in March.
Their daughter, Sonia Ekweremadu – who has a serious kidney condition – wept as she was cleared of the same charge.
Justice Johnson told the defendants: “In each of your cases the offence you committed is so serious that neither a fine nor a community sentence can be justified.”
It was alleged the 21-year-old street trader was to be rewarded for donating the organ to Sonia Ekweremadu, in an £80,000 private procedure at London’s Royal Free Hospital.
The case marked the first time defendants have been convicted under the Modern Slavery Act of an organ harvesting conspiracy.
While it is lawful to donate a kidney, it becomes criminal if money or another material advantage is rewarded.
The prosecution claimed the donor was offered up to £7,000 along with the promise of a better life in the UK.
The donor did not understand until his first appointment with a consultant at the hospital that he was there for a kidney transplant, the Old Bailey heard.
He was said by the consultant to have a “limited understanding” of why he was there and was “visibly relieved” at being told the operation would not go ahead.
It was claimed the man was falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin in a failed bid to persuade medics to carry out the procedure at the Royal Free Hospital.
The donor cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, northwest London, and Dr Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the charge against them.
Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy praised the survivor’s bravery and urged people to look out for other victims of modern slavery, which he said is “all around us”.
Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec called it a “horrific plot” and said the defendants “showed utter disregard for the victim’s welfare, health and wellbeing”.
