Organ Harvesting Trial Accused Admits Lying About His Own Kidney Donor Being His Cousin

Undated image of Sonia Ekweremadu sitting next to a man who was allegedly lined up to donate a kidney to her, in a restaurant in London in February 2022. Metropolitan Police

LONDON—A radiologist accused of being the middleman in an illegal attempt to procure a kidney from a street trader in Lagos that was to be donated to the daughter of a wealthy Nigerian politician has admitted he lied when he claimed his own donor was his cousin.

Obinna Obeta, 51, told a jury he himself underwent a kidney transplant in July 2021 and admitted he lied on the paperwork but added, “I was desperate to survive.”

Obeta is on trial in London along with Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a senator in Nigeria and a former deputy president of the country’s senate, his wife Beatrice, 56, and their daughter Sonia, 25.

All four deny conspiracy to arrange or facilitate the travel of another person with a view to their exploitation.

After the prosecution closed its case on Monday, Obeta was the first of the defendants to enter the witness box at the Old Bailey.

Obeta said he obtained a medical degree in Nigeria and then came to Britain, working first as a general practitioner and then as a senior registrar in a hospital radiology department.

He said both his parents died of kidney disease and in 2019 he himself started to suffer from kidney failure and began undergoing dialysis.

Obeta said he made contact with a doctor, Chris Agbo, in the UK and was told a kidney transplant in London would cost around £70,000.

He said he paid a £10,000 deposit and launched a GoFundMe page in an attempt to raise the rest of the money.

Obeta said at the time he was running a private hospital in eastern Nigeria and, pausing mid-sentence to compose himself in the witness box, he said, “I reached out to my community ... they all wanted to save me.”

Ike Ekweremadu pays his respects to the Biafran secessionist leader Odumegwu Ojukwu during his funeral at Michael Opkara Square in Enugu, Nigeria, on March 1, 2012. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images

Obeta said he tried to find a donor but his brother was rejected because of the family’s history of kidney disease and then a friend was rejected because he had low levels of haemoglobin.

His lawyer Sally Howes, KC, then asked him about the eventual donor—who cannot be named for legal reasons—and she said: “On the form he was identified as being your cousin. Was he?”

Obeta Says He Lied Out of Desperation

“No. He is not my blood relative,” Obeta replied, “and I wish to apologise for that because at that point I was desperate to survive ... and that is why I said we were cousins.”

Howes said, “Do you accept that to identify him as being a nephew or cousin was a lie?”

“Yes, it was a lie,” he replied, but he said he acted out of desperation and felt like he was “drowning in water.”

Howes also asked him if he paid his donor for his kidney.

“No. He didn’t sell it. You need to understand the Ibo background. We have empathy for each other,” Obeta replied, referring to the Ibo tribe to which he, the donor and the other three defendants belong.

Howes asked him, “Did you offer him money for his kidney?”

“No,” he replied.

She asked, “Any other form of reward?”

“No,” Obeta replied.

The jury has heard Obeta gave a prepared statement in which he said he was contacted by Sonia Ekweremadu through social media and gave her advice about the process.

In that statement Obeta said when a donor was lined up he agreed to put him up in his house but he insisted he was treated as a “guest,” had a key to the house, and often went out to the supermarket and other places.

He said one day, after the hospital rejected him, the failed donor left his home and was supposed to be going back to Nigeria, but Obeta said he was then told by the young man’s brother that he had decided to stay in Britain because he had time left on his visa.

Obeta said he was shocked when he was arrested and was told the young man had claimed he was 15.

Last week a 21-year-old man—who cannot be named for legal reasons—told the court he was brought to Britain in February 2022 under the assumption he would be allowed to work and said he had no idea he had been lined up as a kidney donor for Sonia Ekweremadu.

The witness said he initially told police he was 15 as “an act of frustration.”

Beatrice Ekweremadu, wife of Nigeria's former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, leaves the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, in London on Jan. 31, 2023. Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

The court has heard Sonia has a serious kidney condition called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis with nephrotic syndrome, which could only be cured in the long-term by a kidney transplant.

The prosecution has told the jury when the 21-year-old Nigerian was turned down as a donor by doctors at Royal Free Hospital in London, the Ekweremadus turned their attention to Turkey where organ transplant restrictions are less strict.

The jury has been told Sonia was informed of the decision on March 29, 2022, and from April 1, 2022, there is evidence her parents immediately began searching for another donor, and also began to explore the possibility of doing the transplant in Turkey.

Earlier on Monday, the trial heard the content of Beatrice Ekweremadu’s interviews with the police, in which she adamantly denied trafficking the donor into the country and said everything had been arranged by a “third party.”

Couple Arrested As They Flew to UK for Son’s Graduation

Ekweremadu and her husband were arrested in June 2022 after they flew into London to attend their son’s graduation ceremony at the University of Exeter.

The jury heard that a detective asked her why they had flown to Heathrow from Turkey and spent less than a day in that country.

She said they had flown from Abuja to Turkey and then on to London and said they had simply chosen that route because it was the “cheapest” flight.

The court has heard the allegations relate to a period between August 2021 and May 5, 2022.

The young man at the centre of the allegations told the jury last week he was instructed to lie to a doctor and say Sonia was his cousin.

Davies asked him, “Was Sonia your cousin?”

“No. It’s not my cousin,” he replied.

The trial continues.