FORMER Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison in the United Kingdom (UK) for organ trafficking.

  His wife, Beatrice, was also sentenced to four  years and sic months imprisonment.

The doctor who helped them to procure a kidney donor for Sonia, their ailing daughter, Obinna Odeta, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the UK.

They were sentenced on Friday, May 5, 2023 by a Judge at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as The Old Bailey, the street on which the criminal court building in central London stands.

The Judge, Jeremy Johnson, while sentencing them for plotting to harvest a man’s kidney for Sonia, described the act as “despicable,” saying they capitalised on “poverty, misery and desperation” in Nigeria to commit the act.

According to him: “People-trafficking across international borders for the harvesting of human organs is a form of slavery. It treats human beings and their body parts as commodities to be bought and sold.”

He noted that the sentence represented a “substantial fall from grace” for Ekweremadu.

Sonia was earlier cleared of the same charge after jurors deliberated for nearly 14 hours in March.

After the sentencing, Sonia was seen waving to her parents as they were led out of the court, but neither of them showed any emotion, as they were sentenced.

This would be the first of such case in the UK.