UK Convicts Nigerian 'Organ Harvesting' Lawmaker

FILE: Nigeria's former Deputy President of the Senate Ike Ekweremadu (L) during the funeral rites of Nigeria's secessionist leader Odumegwu Ojukwu, in Enugu, southeastern Nigeria. Taken march 1, 2012. A UK court convicted him, his wife, and a doctor of trying to harvest an organ.

LONDON - A jury in London on Thursday found Nigeria's former deputy Senate president guilty of plotting to harvest a street trader's kidney for his sick daughter, in the first UK case of its kind.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, and a doctor, Obinna Obeta, 50, were found guilty at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, of conspiracy to arrange the travel of another person with a view to exploitation, under UK legislation on modern slavery.

The kidney was allegedly intended for Sonia, who remains on dialysis with a renal condition, in return for up to £7,000 ($8,430) and the promise of a new life in Britain for the 21-year-old trader.

The prosecutor earlier said the young man had been coached to give false answers to doctors at the British hospital, and Sonia was "singing from the same hymn sheet" to create a fake family history linking the pair as cousins.

Obeta allegedly managed the process in Nigeria, having himself undergone a kidney transplant in Britain with an organ donated by a "cousin" in 2021, the court was previously told.

In Britain, it is legal to donate a kidney, but not for reward. Prosecutors say regardless of whether the Lagos street trader gave his consent, a crime was committed by the wealthy Nigerians.