Breaking: Ekweremadu’s wife released from UK prison, returns to Nigeria

Beatrice, the wife of Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy senate president, has been released from prison in the United Kingdom and has returned to Nigeria.

A family source told the BBC on Wednesday that Beatrice returned to the country three months ago.

In March 2023, Ekweremadu, Beatrice, and Obinna Obeya, a medical doctor, were convicted of conspiring to traffic a young man for organ harvesting under the UK’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015.

The case marked the first conviction of its kind under the legislation.

On May 5, 2023, Ekweremadu was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison, his wife was sentenced to four years and six months, and Obeta was handed a 10-year prison term.

In his judgment, Jeremy Johnson, the trial judge, ruled 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.

The Ekweremadus were found guilty of arranging for a young Nigerian man to travel to the UK in February 2022 with the intention of harvesting his kidney for their ailing daughter, Sonia.