Ekweremadu denies allegations he offered money to a prospective kidney donor as his case resumes

FORMER deputy senate president Senator Ike Ekweremadu has appeared in a London court and denied allegations that he offered money to a prospective kidney donor to save his sick daughter Sonia.

In June, Senator Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice were arrested by London's Metropolitan Police on suspicion of child trafficking and planned organ harvesting. They were charged before Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court with conspiracy to arrange/facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.

Both of them were denied bail at the time and were remanded in custody until the case were heard again on July 26 at the Westminster Magistrates Court, when Beatrice was released but her husband was denied bail. In the first such case of its kind involving Nigerians, the Ekweremadus were accused of conspiring to traffic a homeless man into the UK to harvest his kidney for their daughter.

Senator Ekweremadu, his wife and their 25-year-old daughter, are on trial in London for allegedly trafficking a young man from Nigeria to serve as kidney donor. The Ekweremadus were alleged to have offered £7,000 to the 21-year-old trader who they flew to London and falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin so as to obtain his kidney.

In his opening addresses at the Old Bailey yesterday, Senator Ekwremadu said through his lawyer Martin Hicks, that he believed the donor was acting altruistically. Mr Hicks added that Senator Ekweremadu did not attend any visits to the Royal Free Hospital in February and March last year, where it was concluded that the donor was unsuitable.

Mr Hicks said: “Be alive please to the possible cultural differences between this country and that of Nigeria, particularly to altruistic donation. We say the issue in this case is simple, did there exist an agreement to exploit the donor in the way the prosecution allege and if so, who was a party to it?

“In Nigerian society, there is an expression everyone is each other’s keeper and the altruistic donation of organs is not regarded there as such a rare event as it is in this country. We question whether the donor was exploited as suggested by the prosecution.”

Sonia's lawyer, John Femi-Ola, added:“She suffers from a very severe kidney disease. She receives dialysis treatment three days per week and each session is for four hours. The treatment is for the rest of her life unless there is a transplant in the future which now must be much in doubt given the publicity this case has attracted.”