Don’t miss a thing! Sign up to the Daily Star’s newsletter
We have more newsletters
A wealthy senior Nigerian politician found guilty of an organ-harvesting plot in the UK has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison.
Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, planned with his family and doctor to traffic a 21-year-old to Britain for an £80,000 kidney transplant.
The plan was to give his daughter, Sonia a kidney after disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the Old Bailey in London heard during the hearing in March.
READ MORE: Queen 'had brutal one-word description of Meghan Markle' – and it will shock you
It is the first conviction of its kind under modern slavery laws in the United Kingdom, and he will now spend several years in prison as a result – although The Africa Report claims he has earned around £300,000 since being held in custody from June, 2022.
Ekweremadu's wife Beatrice, 56, and medical “middleman” Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, were also found guilty of conspiring to exploit a young man from Lagos for his body part which they offered him £7,000 for, and will spend four and a half years and 10 years in prison respectively.
During the hearing earlier this year, the Ekweremadus’ daughter Sonia, 25, wept as she was cleared of the same charge.
The victim, a 21-year-old street trader from Lagos, was brought to the UK last year to provide a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private transplant at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
-
Inside UK's 'Monster Mansion' jail where evil Levi Bellfield confessed to more killings
The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court at the time: “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 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.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here .
READ NEXT:
-
For more of the latest news from the world of the Daily Star, check out our homepage
-
Coronation crowds scanned by 'dystopian' facial recognition cams to foil terror attack
-
Cyclist attacked by puma just one of 38 big cat sightings reported to police in 2022
-
'Turkish plastic surgeon butchered my chest in op that left me with one dead boob'
-
Madeleine McCann's sister breaks silence on 'sad occasion' 16 years after disappearance
- London
- Courts
- Prison News
- Breaking News
Source: Read Full Article
-
Teenage woman ‘arrested over vile dog sex church video’ hit with Twitter ban
-
Schoolgirl told to ‘send picture of you doing homework in bathtub’ by teacher
-
Who is Suzy Lamplugh suspect John Cannan? | The Sun
-
Queen Consort will show silver box made for King Charles's ancestor
-
Sturgeon's time as first minister saw her clock 112,474 air miles