Former deputy president of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has denied offering money to a prospective kidney donor to save his sick daughter, Sonia.
The lawmaker, his wife, Beatrice, and their 25-year-old daughter are on trial in London for allegedly trafficking a young man from Nigeria to serve as kidney donor.
The Ekweremadus were alleged to have offered £7,000 to the 21-year-old trader whom they flew to London and falsely presented as Sonia’s cousin so as to obtain his kidney.
According to Daily Mail, in his opening addresses at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, lawyers for the defendant, Martin Hicks, insisted they believed the donor was acting “altruistically”.
Hicks told jurors, “Be alive please to the possible cultural differences between this country and that of Nigeria, particularly to altruistic donation.