FACT-CHECK: Has UK Court Sentenced Ekweremadu To 10 Years In Jail?
Reports in some sections of the social media claimed on Monday that Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for organ trafficking in the UK.
“Ekweremadu sentenced to 10 years in UK……..possible 5 Nigerian years,” Ayekooto Akindele, a Twitter user with over 232,000 followers, claimed in a tweet.
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Several Facebook users, including popular radio personality, Daddy Freeze, similarly claimed that the ranking Nigerian Senator who was recently convicted by a UK court alongside his wife and a medical doctor was sentenced 10 years for the crime.
“Senator Ekweremadu Sentenced To 10years In UK Prison, This Makes NO Sense,” Daddy Freeze captioned a live Facebook video on Monday.
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VERIFICATION OF CLAIM
Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and one Dr Obinna Obeta, were on March 23 found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to the United Kingdom with intentions to exploit him for his kidney.
Sonia Ekweremadu, daughter of the Enugu politician, was reported to be down with kidney failure and requires a transplant to stay alive.
Her parents and the medical doctor were convicted by the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, known as Old Bailey, after a six-week trial but weren’t immediately sentenced.
Checks by THE WHISTLER on Monday found no evidence to support the claim that Senator Ekweremadu was sentenced to 10 years in jail by the said UK court.
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There are no credible news reports or official statements to support this claim and search of major UK news outlets and the UK court system did not yield any information about such a verdict against the Ekweremadus.
Also, official information sources of the Nigerian Government did not make any public statements about the alleged sentence.
Additionally, on the day of the trio’s conviction in March, the UK Guardian reported the judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, fixed May 5, 2023 to sentence them.
OUR RATING: FALSE
While the UK Modern Slavery Act prescribes “imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years” for such infraction, reports claiming that the trio has been sentenced is false.
