Organ harvesting: Ekweremadu’s wife returns to Nigeria after UK jail sentence

Beatrice, wife of former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, has returned to Nigeria after being released from a UK prison.

Details are sketchy as of the time of this report, but BBC quoted a family source as saying she returned to the country three months ago.

Beatrice, her husband, Ekweremadu, and a medical “middleman”, Obinna Obeta, were convicted in the United Kingdom last year, for conspiring to traffic a market trader to harvest his kidney.

The boy, who had been hawking in Lagos, was allegedly lured to the UK under false pretences to donate an organ for the couple’s ailing daughter, Sophia.

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At the ruling, Ekweremadu was jailed for nine years and eight months, his wife was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment while Obeta received a 10-year prison term.

The trial judge, Jeremy Johnson, ruled that Beatrice should spend half of the sentence in custody and on license for the rest of the sentence.

Johnson also held that the period spent by Beatrice in electronically monitored curfew and the remand duration should be considered when calculating the time spent in prison.