By Felix Ekwu
It has now been revealed that discrepancies in the age of the alleged victim of organ harvest by Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice, eventually led to their arrest by the police in the United Kingdom.
The Ekweremadus were arrested on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, at Heathrow airport on their way to Istanbul in Turkey and charged for bringing a boy to the UK for organ harvesting.
They were allegedly planning to procure a kidney from a donor in Turkey after their initial plan failed.
According to ARISE International Correspondent, Adefemi Akinsanya, who was at the Uxbridge magistrate court where the Ekweremadus were arraigned today Thursday, the prosecution team told the court that the alleged victim is a homeless 15-year-old boy who was brought to the UK by Mr and Mrs Ekweremadu, from the streets of Lagos under the false pretence to expose him to a better life.
But, in actual fact, they brought the boy to the UK to harvest his organ for their daughter who has a serious ailment that pertains to the kidney and she has been on dialysis for quite some time.
In procuring travelling documents for the boy, the Ekweremadus put his age on the international passport at 21 years.
However, at the Royal Free Hospital in the UK, the boy disclosed his age to be 15 which prompted the doctors to cancel the initial plan for his organ transfer.
They thereafter took the boy into the custody of the family, who according to the prosecutors treated him like a slave until he escaped and found his way to the police, where an investigation was launched sometime in May 2022 leading to the arrest of the couple.
At Thursday’s court proceedings, the separate defence lawyers to the Ekweremadus tried to argue for them to be released from custody and remain in the UK while they await the next part of the case.
Their legal representatives argued further that Senator Ekweremadu and his wife had already surrendered their passports and given details of their immigration and hence should be granted bail.
After the arguments, the magistrate took ten minutes to deliberate before coming back to disagree with the option.
The magistrate proceeded to deny them bail and ordered that they be remanded in custody to the next adjourned date of Thursday, July 7, 2022.
