A Nigerian politician and his wife were found guilty by a London jury of plotting to bring a Lagos street trader to the UK in order to harvest one of his organs for their sick daughter.
Ike Ekweremadu, a senior Nigerian senator, and his wife Beatrice were on trial for conspiring together between August 2021 and May 2022 to bring a man from Nigeria to London to exploit him into donating his kidney to their 25-year-old daughter Sonia, who suffers from a kidney condition.
The couple and Obinna Obeta, described by prosecutors as a “medically qualified middle-man” who helped the family, were found guilty by the jury at the Old Bailey on Thursday following a six-week trial. Sonia, who was also on the indictment, was found not guilty by the jury.
A sentencing hearing was set for May 5, although this is subject to change.
Prosecutors described at the opening of the trial how the Lagos man, who cannot be named, was selling telephone parts from a cart in public markets for a few British pounds a day before he was brought into the scheme. The alleged agreement was that he would donate a kidney to Sonia in return for as much as £7,000 ($8,625) plus the promise of work in the UK. The transplant never took place after London doctors blocked it from going ahead.
