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| Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and his wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu. |
A doctor has been charged with plotting with Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, to traffic a man into the United Kingdom to harvest a kidney for their daughter.
Ekweremadu, a former Deputy President of the Senate, is being held alongside his wife by the UK authorities over allegations that he brought a young man into the country for the purpose of organ harvesting.
The doctor was identified as Obinna Obeta and is said to be residing in Southwark in south London.
He was charged under the Modern Slavery Act with arranging the travel of the 21-year-old man with a view to him being exploited between last August and May, Daily Mail reported.
In another charge, the defendant was alleged to have conspired with the couple to arrange or facilitate the travel of the man with a view to him being exploited, namely organ harvesting.
Fifty-year-old Obeta was brought to the Bexley Magistratesโ Court on July 13, while arguments in the case were heard on Friday.
Ekweremadu and his wife who have since denied any wrongdoing were taken to detention following their arrest at Heathrow Airport on June 21 after arriving on a flight from Turkey.
Following their arrest by the London Metropolitan Police, the duo appeared before a UK court which ordered that they should be remanded in custody till July 7 while investigations continued into the allegations against them.
While the Met police said the donor was 15, he was reported to have refused to consent to the procedure after undergoing tests at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north-west London.
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), in a statement, said it issued an international passport indicating his age as 21 after due process.
On July 1, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the NIS, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), and two commercial banks to release the details of the said victim in their possession to Ekweremadu and his wife.
Barely a week later, the Westminster Magistratesโ Court ruled that the kidney donor was not a minor after confirming his age as 21.
The trio of Ekweremadu, Beatrice, and Obeta are due to appear at the Old Bailey on August 4.
