A wealthy couple who planned to traffic a young man into the UK so they could harvest his kidney for their sick daughter have been sentenced.
Ike Ekweremadu was given nine years and eight months in the first successful UK prosecution for an organ harvesting plot, alongside his wife Beatrice, who was jailed for four and a half years and Dr Obinna Obeta, who was jailed for 10 years.
Ike and Beatrice Ekweremadu along with their 25-year-old daughter Sonia faced trial at the Old Bailey.
In a televised sentencing on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson recognised Ike Ekweremadu’s “substantial fall from grace”.
The senior judge said: “People-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery.
“It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold.
“It is a trade that preys on poverty, misery and desperation.”
He told the defendants: “You each played a part in that despicable trade.”
On the question of harm to the victim if the intended transplant went ahead, he said: “He would have faced spending the rest of his life with only one kidney and without the requisite funding for the required aftercare.”
He added the risks had not been properly explained and there had been no consent “in any meaningful sense”.
Previously the court heard Nigerian senator Ike, 60, his wife Beatrice, 56, were accused of conspiring to traffic a young man to Britain for his body parts.
They faced the accusations along with medical “middleman” Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, who was also found guilty, and were said to have created an “elaborate” back story to try and get away with it, utilising their connections to get the donor a visa.
Daughter Sonia wept back in March as she was cleared of the same charges after the jury deliberated for nearly 14 hours.
The court heard that the 21-year-old street trader from Lagos was to be rewarded for donating a kidney to Sonia in an £80,000 private procedure at the Royal free Hospital in London.
But he was later rejected as unsuitable, despite the extensive efforts the family were said to have gone to get him, and it was alleged that the Ekweremadus then changed their donor search to Turkey after doctors refused them.
While it is lawful for someone to donate a kidney, it is criminal to reward someone for doing so, jurors heard.
When asked why they didn't go to a member of their own family for the kidney, the prosecution said it was because the wealthy couple wanted the "risk to go to someone you don't know".
An investigation was launched after the young man ran away from London and slept rough for days before walking into a police station more than 20 miles away Staines in Surrey, crying and in distress.
The Ekweremadus, who have an address in Willesden Green, north-west London, and Dr Obeta, from Southwark, south London, denied the charges against them before being found guilty.
As part of the plot, "elaborate" steps were taken to create the lie that Sonia and her proposed donor were cousins, it is claimed.
During the trial, prosecutor Hugh Davies KC, told jurors: "Most parents, whether powerful or not in society, will do whatever is necessary to alleviate suffering in their child.
"The Ekweremadus were no different: the evidence - from downloads from their mobile phones, and wider actions - demonstrates a close, open and loving family each with an understandable and direct interest in Sonia's medical treatment."
During the hearing, the victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said he only found out what was planned when he was taken to the north London hospital for an initial consultation.
In a statement read to court: “I would never (have) agreed to any of this.
“My body is not for sale.”
He spoke of his fears for his own safety and that of his family in Nigeria who had been visited and told to “drop” the case.
He said: “I cannot think about going home to Nigeria.
“These people are extremely powerful and I worry for my family.
“Even though I live here in the UK at the moment I know I need to be careful too.
“I have no-one here, no family, no friends.
“I am having to start my life again.
“I’m worried about my family in Nigeria but I have been told my dad had been visited and was told to drop the case in the UK.”
He told police he did not want to claim compensation from the “bad people” as it would be “cursed and bad luck”.
He said: “My plan now is to work and to get an education and to play football.”
It is the first time anyone has been convicted under the Modern Slavery Act of an organ-harvesting conspiracy.
Scotland Yard declined to say whether more charges would be brought but said the investigation was ongoing.
Police have highlighted soaring numbers of modern slavery cases in recent years with a small number involving organ harvesting.
Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy said: “Human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal is relatively rare in the UK, but what we have seen since the victim’s bravery is that this is now not the only investigation of that nature taking place in London.
“Although organ harvesting forms a very small percentage of modern slavery, human trafficking, we’re now starting to see more people coming forward.
“The victim of this case, a very brave young man, was exploited due to his vulnerable economic circumstances, by people that were powerful, wealthy, and that exerted control and dominance over him bringing into the UK for purposes of taking his kidney.
“Their motivation was to get a kidney for their daughter, without any thought of the process that that involved, any thought of aftercare, any thought for the victim of the modern slavery offence at all."
