Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice have been arrested and charged in a Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court, the United Kingdom on Thursday with conspiring to transport a child in order to harvest organs.
Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and his wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, were however denied bail by the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court.
The “alleged victim, in this case, is a homeless 15-year-old boy who was brought to the U.K. by Mr. and Mrs. Ekweremadu off the streets of Lagos Nigeria”, Arise TV report said.
Ekweremadu, who was recently made a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln, served three terms as Nigeria’s deputy president of the Senate, from 2007 to 2019.
The lawyer and politician, a member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has been a senator since 2003.
An investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime Team took place after detectives were alerted to potential modern-day slavery offenses.
Organ harvesting involves removing parts of the body, often for commercial gain and against the will of the victim.
Police, however, said the child has been safeguarded but did not disclose the gender or the age of the child or the location of the arrests.
The case has been adjourned to July 7th.
