By Eric Elezuo

On face value, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who once served as the Deputy Senate President of the Nigerian eight senate, and one time Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, would be 70 years in the next nine years when he would be expected to be released from prison.

This is because the former lawmaker bagged a nine years, six months jail term after he was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, United Kingdom (UK) for organ trafficking. His wife, Beatrice, did not escape the long arm of the law, as she got six years imprisonment.

It would be recalled that the long walk of the senator to London prison began on June 23, 2022, when the London Metropolitan Police announced that it has arrested Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, for conspiring to bring an alleged 15-year-old boy to the UK for organ harvesting. The kidney donor, one David Nwamini’s travel was said to have been arranged between August 1, 2021, and May 5, 2022, with a view to exploitation, punishable under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The couple were charged the same day at the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court where they pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody and the trial adjourned till July 7. What they did not, nor any of their well wishers understood was that a long walk with the legal system, culminating in inglorious incarceration, has just begun.

After a lot of back and forth, and several adjournments, the trial resumed proper on February 3 2023 as the senator and his legal team could not stop influence his daughter’s application to not stand trial with him and her mother for the said “conspiracy to harvest organ”. The charges was thrown out by Justice Jeremiah Johnson.

With the senator sitting hapless in detention, and following proceedings via video link, his daughter, Sonia, 25, was in the dock with her mother, listening to the judge ruled declare that she was not unfit to stand a “criminal trial lasting seven weeks” against the argument of her defence barrister, Femi Oni.

After tabling the application for “stay of proceedings” on the basis that “she’s unfit” medically and psychologically due to her ongoing thrice a week dialysis, both sides of the bench led their expert witnesses in testimonies via video link, beginning with the Manchester-based professor that Oni had lined up.

After being sworn in, the defence asked him: “Did you have an opportunity to get consultation with her before writing his report”, he replied with a “yes.” Asked if he has a report on “what she’s suffering from?” the professor told the court that “she’s developed from a young age, a kidney condition “that led to a gradual dysfunction and consequently, “her life is dependent on dialysis treatment until she has a kidney transplant.”

Led in further testimony, he told the court the treatment has placed a psychological, mental and medical burden on her as it does on other dialysis patients. The professor also relied on the report of a consultant psychiatrist.

Davies, on his part, had Dr Andrews as his expert witness. Though he admitted having not had any direct consultation with Sonia, but did say if the court’s schedule of sitting times was moved to afternoons to accommodate her treatment days, that she’s capable of standing trial. Andrew told the court in his testimony that, ‘the residual symptoms of dialysis does not make it impossible to attend trial.”

After listening to the barristers and their expert witnesses, including their reports, and acknowledging that the treatment takes its toll on her and that she has even had to withdraw from her Masters degree programme after her diagnosis, the judge said it is not confirmed that her recovery or clinical care could suffer if she were to stand trial. He then ruled that accordingly, “the application is dismissed.”

A week later, a Royal Free Hospital dialysis expert who carried out a routine pre-surgical assessment for the kidney donor told the court that he had concerns about his suitability and that he didn’t seem to know the implications of what he had signed up for.

Prosecution witness, Dr David DuPont, said as part of normal clinical practice of interviewing potential donors, so as to be certain they were not being “forced or under duress or coerced nor induced to donate their organ”, he asked Nwamini these and other questions during a face-to-face meeting at the clinic last year February.

Despite the defence put up by Ekweremadu, 60; his wife, Beatrice, 56; and Obeta, 51, the court convicted them for organ trafficking on Thursday, March 23, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.

However, the court cleared the lawmaker’s daughter, Sonia.  The jury ruled that Ekweremadu, his wife and their doctor criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney and reserved their sentencing till yesterday when the trio received sentences with Dr. Obeta getting the highest of 10 years.

However, both the Senator and his wife got some discounts and will not serve the entire duration of their terms due to mitigating circumstances that Johnson factored into his judgment. While the senator will serve two thirds of his term, his wife’s term was reduced to four years and six months after factoring in the discounts.

“It’s going to be two thirds” Gary Owen, one of the Senator’s barristers told The Guardian outside the Court after the judgment when asked to clarify the implication of the discount.

On her part, the wife would serve half of her term. So, while the Senator will do about six years, he won’t stay locked up for that much as he’s already been in custody since June 21, 2023, when he was arrested with the wife at Heathrow Airport. She too will spend less than three years, as the time already spent in custody will be deducted.

Additional information from The Guardian.