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Details on why former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu were arrested have emerged.
Ekweremadu and his wife allegedly planned to bring in a child from Nigeria for organ harvesting.
The Eastern Updates had earlier reported that the Metropolitan Police had said the couple were charged with conspiracy to arrange and facilitate the travel of another person with a view to exploitation, namely organ harvesting.
Read Also: Organ Harvesting: Ekweremadu Has Made Us Ashamed – MASSOB
However, Daily Mail reports that the couple who appeared before the Uxbridge Magistrate Court on Thursday, hoped to transplant the boy’s organs to their daughter who suffers from kidney failure.
The newspaper said the court heard that the couple were arrested on Tuesday at the Heathrow Airport as they attempted to board a plane to Turkey where it was suggested that the procedure could take place.
Ekweremadu is said to have had £20,000 on him at the time of his arrest, according to prosecutors.
The couple have been remanded in custody and the case adjourned until July 7.
Meanwhile, a former Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Muhammad Babandede, has reacted to the arrest of ex-Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu amid controversy of alleged organ harvesting.
‘I will be very specific to you that this issue is a case of trafficking issue, not only passports. The Metropolitan police are accusing Mr and Mrs Ekweremadu of trafficking a person for organ harvesting. And when we talk about trafficking, there are many issues involved, we are talking about the act itself, the process and the purpose,” Babandede said.
‘So you need to analyze this before you even talk about the passport. Trafficking simply means you take a person from one place to another place by force with the intent of exploitation.
‘So the issue is that even if that person was a child, let’s assume like it is being circulated because we cannot say it is in the court of law.
‘The truth of the matter is that what you declare to the Immigration is what the Immigration gives if we can prove that the person left Nigeria as a child and a passport was obtained to him as an adult even if he is a child.
‘It means his consent was irrelevant even if he has given consent that he wants to donate because I have seen a letter circulated on social media which says that Ekweremadu has given a letter to the British High Commissioner that he wants to take him out in terms of transplant which means consent is there from the adult.
‘So in trafficking, even if an adult consent is given, it could still be in the UK as a case of trafficking, but if that person was a child it has been circulated that the child was a 15-year-old somebody forged the passport in Nigeria. It depends on cooperation between Nigeria and the UK.’
