Former Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has bagged a prison sentence of 9years 8 months at the Old Baily, London, under the Modern Slavery Act.
Ekweremadu’s wife, Beatrice, got a sentence of 4 years 6 months, while the medical practitioner at the center of the case, Obinna Obeta, was slammed with a jail term of 10 years.
The trio were found guilty of conspiring to bring a 21-year old Lagos street trader to London with the intension to exploit him of his kidney.
Mr Justice Johnson, who handed down the sentences despite pleas by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian Senate, ECOWAS Parliament, Ekweremadu’s community in Enugu, among other individuals and groups, said: “People-traficking of human organs is a form of slavery. It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold. It is a trade that preys on poverty, misery and desperation”.
The verdict is the first of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act of the United Kingdom.
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