Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, his wife, and a medical middleman have been sentenced to jail for their role in a conspiracy to harvest a man’s kidney.
Ike Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice, and middleman Obeta were convicted under the Modern Slavery Act in the UK.
Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months, while his wife received a four-year and six-month imprisonment, and Obeta received ten years.
The Ekweremadus' daughter Sonia, who has a serious kidney condition, wept as she was cleared of the same charge.
The Justice told the defendants: "In each of your cases the offence you committed is so serious that neither a fine nor a community sentence can be justified."
It was alleged that the 21-year-old street trader was to be rewarded for donating the organ to Sonia Ekweremadu, in an £80,000 private procedure at London's Royal Free Hospital.
This case marked the first conviction under the Modern Slavery Act for an organ harvesting conspiracy.
While it is lawful to donate a kidney, it becomes criminal if money or another material advantage is rewarded.
The prosecution claimed the donor was offered up to £7,000 along with the promise of a better life in the UK.
The court was told that the donor did not understand until his first appointment with a consultant at the hospital that he was there for a kidney transplant.
According to the consultant, he had a "limited understanding" of why he was there and was "visibly relieved" at being told the operation would not go ahead.
It was claimed the man was falsely presented as Sonia Ekweremadu's cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out the procedure at the Royal Free Hospital.
The donor cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Sonia Ekweremadu, who takes dialysis weekly, declined to give evidence but it was said on her behalf she knew nothing of a reward offered to donors.
