Former deputy president of the Nigerian Senate Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice Ekweremadu have been denied bail by a Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in London.
The couple was charged on Thursday with conspiracy to harvest the organs of a child.
Prosecutors said the duo were being charged for bringing a 15-year-old boy from Nigeria to the UK with the claim that he was to be given a better life in the UK but was actually to harvest his organ.
The court heard that Ekweremadu allegedly procured a passport for the boy and claimed he was 21 years old.
Ekweremadu and wife have a daughter who has a kidney-related disease and has been on dialysis for quite some time, prosecutors said.
Premium Times reports that it obtained a late 2021 letter from sources close to Ekweremadu purporting that the lawmaker asked the British High Commission in Nigeria to issue a visa for a male.
In the letter, Ekweremadu disclosed that the applicant was travelling to the UK for medical examination to possibly donate a kidney to his daughter Sonia.
Prosecutors believe the male Ekweremadu was referring to is the minor now in protective custody.
Ekweremadu and wife have since surrendered their passports to the UK government
The case was adjourned till July 7.
