Formal trial in the case of the alleged organ harvesting plot and human trafficking preferred against Nigeria’s former deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and his wife, Beatrice, may begin in May 2023.
This is according to the judge, Richard Marks, who is currently hearing the bail application filed by Senator Ekweremadu.
Ike Ekweremadu, 60, representing Enugu West on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); his wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, an accountant, and Obinna Obeta, 50, a doctor, are accused of the organ-harvesting plot after allegedly taking their victim off the streets of Lagos, Nigeria.
Prosecutors claim that the Ekweremadus planned to have the kidneys of one David Ukpo Nwamini, 21, removed at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north west London, so it could be given to their daughter who suffers from kidney failure.
Nwamini was said to have refused to consent to the procedure after undergoing tests.
He accused the Ekweremadus of allegedly treating him as a slave before he ‘escaped’ and went to Staines police station in Surrey.
The alleged offences were said to have taken place between August 1, 2021 and May 5, 2022.
The Ekweremadus were arrested at Heathrow Airport on June 21 after arriving on a flight from Turkey.
Senator Ekweremadu and Obinna Obeta, from Southwark, south London, are charged with conspiring to arrange or facilitate the travel of a man with a view to him being exploited.
Mrs Ekweremadu and Obeta are charged with arranging the travel of the man with a view to him being exploited.
According to the Daily Mail of London, Mrs Ekweremadu, who is on bail, on Thursday appeared at the Old Bailey for a plea and directions hearing, with Ekweremadu and Obeta also attending by video link from Wandsworth and Belmarsh prisons.
The defendants were not asked to enter pleas during the hearing and spoke only to confirm their identities.
Judge Marks said the case would be heard by a High Court judge.
He identified a provisional trial from May 2 next year with an estimated length of three to four weeks.
A further plea and case management hearing was rescheduled for October 31.
The judge granted Mrs Ekweremadu continued conditional bail and remanded the male defendants into custody.
