LONDON: A senior Nigerian politician and his wife were found guilty Thursday of conspiring to transport a street trader to the UK as part of an organ-harvesting plot.
Ike Ekweremadu, who was deputy president of the Nigerian Senate and a lawyer, and his wife, Beatrice, were accused of arranging the travel of a 21-year-old man to the UK with a view to exploiting him for a kidney donation.
Prosecutors said the politician and his wife were behind the recruitment of the man at a Lagos street market, and that they arranged for the victim to provide a kidney to their 25-year-old daughter, Sonia, in an 80,000-pound (nearly $100,000) transplant operation at a London hospital.
The victim, who was transported to London in February 2022, believed he was being taken to the capital for work, and that under the agreement he would be paid thousands of pounds, prosecutors said.
Kidney donations are lawful in the UK, but it’s a criminal offense to reward someone with money or other material advantage for doing so.
The verdict is the first to convict suspects of an organ-harvesting conspiracy under the UK’s modern slavery laws.
As part of the ruse, the victim was described as Sonia’s cousin in his UK visa application, and the Ekweremadus pretended to doctors that the young man was related to Sonia.
But a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital became suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the proposed operation, and decided it couldn’t go ahead. The Ekweremadus then tried to find more potential donors in Turkiye, prosecutors said.
The case came to light when the victim reported to British police that he had been trafficked from Nigeria and that someone was trying to transplant his kidney.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Joanne Jakymec described the case as “horrific.”
“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 limited understanding of what was really going on here,” she said in a statement.
Dr. Obinna Obeta, described by prosecutors as a medical “middleman” in the plot, was also found guilty Thursday at London’s Central Criminal Court. Sonia Ekweremadu, who has a serious kidney condition, was cleared by the jury.
The defendants were ordered to remain in custody, and their sentencing was scheduled for May 5.
Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot
https://arab.news/9er6j
Nigerian politician found guilty in UK organ harvesting plot
- Ekweremadu and his wife were accused of arranging the travel of a 21-year-old man to the UK with a view to exploiting him for a kidney donation
IAEA board meets over Ukraine nuclear safety concerns
- The war in Ukraine “continues to pose the world’s biggest threat to nuclear safety,” Grossi said
- The mission will assess 10 substations “crucial to nuclear safety,” according to Grossi
VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s board of governors on Friday discussed nuclear safety in Ukraine, with several countries expressing “growing concern” following Russian attacks on the power grid.
Energy supplies to Ukraine’s nuclear plants have been affected as Russia has pounded its neighbor’s power sector since the start of its 2022 invasion, prompting fears of a nuclear disaster.
The war in Ukraine “continues to pose the world’s biggest threat to nuclear safety,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said when opening the board meeting.
The extraordinary meeting that lasted four hours was called after 13 countries led by the Netherlands expressed in a letter seen by AFP a “growing concern about the severity and urgency of nuclear safety risks” following a series of attacks.
Ukrainian ambassador Yurii Vitrenko told reporters before the meeting that it was “high time” for the IAEA board to discuss the situation.
A weeks-long IAEA expert mission to Ukrainian substations and power plants is under way and expected to wrap up next month, Vitrenko said.
The mission will assess 10 substations “crucial to nuclear safety,” according to Grossi.
Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov dismissed the board’s gathering as “absolutely politically motivated,” adding there was “no real need to hold such a meeting today.”
Last week, Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant temporarily lost all off-site power.
Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Russian forces since March 2022, has also been repeatedly affected by fighting.
Earlier this month, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a localized ceasefire to allow repairs on the last remaining backup power line supplying Zaporizhzhia.
The line was damaged and disconnected as a result of military activity in early January.
The Zaporizhzhia plant’s six reactors have been shut down since the occupation. But the site still needs electricity to maintain its cooling and security systems.
Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of risking a nuclear catastrophe by attacking the site.
