LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - A wealthy Nigerian politician and his wife were found guilty on Thursday of unlawfully transporting a street vendor from Lagos to London to remove his kidney for transplantation into their daughter, who was in critical condition.
According to the prosecution, Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and his wife Beatrice, 56, lured the guy to London in February of last year with the prospect of a job in Britain in exchange for a few thousand dollars for his organ.
A court in London was informed that Ekweremadu and his wife were essential individuals in Nigerian society with authority, influence, and a "substantial degree of money." Ekweremadu is an opposition senator from the southern Nigerian state of Enugu and a former deputy senate president.
They were found guilty of conspiring with a Nigerian doctor named Obinna Obeta, 51, who the prosecution characterized as a middleman, to organize another person's journey with the intent to exploit them.
This was a horrific plot to exploit a vulnerable victim by trafficking him to the UK for the purpose of transplanting his kidney.
The convicted defendants showed utter disregard for the victim's welfare, health, and well-being and used their considerable influence to a high degree of control throughout, with the victim having a limited understanding of what was really going on here.
Sonia Ekweremadu, the organ's intended recipient who needs dialysis due to a severe and rapidly worsening kidney ailment, was found not guilty of any involvement in the scheme.
The guy, who had earned a livelihood in Lagos by selling telephone parts from a cart in a market, went to the police and said he had been trafficked and that someone was trying to take his kidney. This is how the case was discovered.
The planned transplant was never carried out because a consultant at the Royal Free hospital in London had doubts about the circumstances surrounding the prospective donor, a man or woman in his or her early twenties whom the family had attempted to pass off as Sonia's cousin but who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Donating a kidney is not unlawful in Britain, but it is a criminal offense to offer a reward, regardless of whether the donor is complicit.
There are, however, certain things that money and status cannot guarantee in any family, and they include good health.
Police said the guilty verdicts marked the first time someone had been convicted in Britain of human trafficking for organ harvesting.
Detective Inspector Esther Richardson said in a statement:
This conviction sends out a clear message across the world. The UK will not tolerate the international industry in illegal organ removal."
