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UK court finds Ike Ekweremadu, wife, doctor guilty of organ trafficking
A court in the United Kingdom has found Ike Ekweremadu, former Deputy Senate President; his wife Beatrice and their doctor guilty of organ trafficking, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.
Ekweremadu, 60; 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.
They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found, according to 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.
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”, Davies told the jury.
He said Ekweremadu, who owns 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 contact”.
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.”
Ekweremadu, who denied the charge, told the court he was the victim of a scam. Obeta, who also denied the charge, claimed the man was not offered a reward for his kidney and was acting altruistically. Beatrice denied any knowledge of the alleged conspiracy. Sonia did not give evidence.
The judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, will pass sentence at a later date
mickykarim
March 23, 2023 at 1:55 pm
THIS IS A TRAVESTY OF BOTH JUSTICE AND THE PROCESS. A FACE-SAVING SCHEME FOR THE MUCH APPRAISED AND OVERRATED OVER REGARDED GLORIFIED JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF THE English.
The RECEIVER of the proceeds and the purported GIVER or merchandise hawker of the whare were both exonerated.
THESE PEOPLE WHO CLAIMED CIVILIZATION ABOVE OTHERS ARE TOO MEAN AND UNJUST.
When two important and consequential elements in a case are out of the woods of justice tells a lot about the entire system and process.
https://www.nairaland.com/7193631/parenthood-tears-desperation-agony-ekweremadus
THE Ekweremadus did nothing wrong to have sought existence for their daughter, with a life saving measure and or any for that matter. What is organ harvesting in what was duly documented with the embassy of the UK?
THIS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE MUST NOT BE THE END OF THE CHARADE IN London OR WHEREVER IN THE UK.