Ekweremadu: Organ trafficking victim contacted CIA police, says court
Ekweremadu: Organ trafficking victim contacted CIA police, says court

The alleged organ tracking trial of former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, continued on Tuesday in London, with the court hearing more about how the 21-year-old victim was allegedly trafficked to London to provide Ekweremadu’s ailing daughter, Sonia, with a kidney.

BBC reported United Kingdom Court, Old Bailey was told how the young market trader walked into Staines Police Station, last May, and begged for help after sleeping out for three nights.

The lawmaker was in June 2022 arrested at Heathrow Airport in London after Staines Police Station received a report from a young man claiming to have been trafficked into the UK.

Old Bailey said the proposed donor, who could not be named for legal reasons, ran away after doctors at the Royal Free Hospital decided he was not a suitable candidate.

The young man, who made the report shortly after arriving in the UK from Nigeria, alleged that he was made to undergo some medical tests, none of which he consented to.

In body-worn footage shown to jurors, the trafficked victim appeared to be crying and distressed when he walked into the police station.

He said, “I don’t know anywhere, I don’t know where I am. I have been sleeping three days outside around, looking for someone to help me, save my life.”

He told the receptionist he had been brought into the country by a man he met in Lagos.

“He carried me to the hospital to remove my kidneys. The doctor said I was too young but the man said if ‘you do not do it here he would carry me back to Nigeria and do it there,’” he said.

BBC stated that he told jurors he thought he was being brought to the UK to work and only found out it was for him to donate a kidney when he visited the Royal Free Hospital.

The young man told jurors that “he was “shocked”, felt like crying, and that “nobody told me about kidney transplant”.

“He claimed he was told he had to go ahead with the operation in exchange for N1.2m (about £2,000).

“When he ran away, the court heard him saying this was his first time setting his feet in London, not knowing where he was.”

Ekweremadu was immediately arraigned before a Magistrates’ Court for bringing a child into the UK to allegedly harvest his organ.

While the lawmaker had been in custody since June 23, his wife, Beatrice, who was arrested with him, was granted bail by the London court shortly after their arrest.

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