Mr. Justice Jeremiah Johnson slammed the sentences just before 2:00pm in Courtroom One after a tense and long sentencing hearing. Their kidney donor broker, Dr. Obinna Obeta, got 10 years. All three had already been found guilty at the same court on March 23, after a seven-week jury trial.
After the sentencing, the senator’s daughter, Sonia, and Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe were in tears. But the Ekweremadus sons, Prince and Lylod, kept their emotions intact. “From all indications, everything was done professionally and competently. The sentence might appear excessive and or harsh, but overall, it does not appear to be inconsistent with the evidence. Too bad for the convicts, but the system worked efficiently. More than you can say for these parts,” he added.
Both Sonia, 25, who was in the dock with her mother, Beatrice, while the senator followed proceedings via video link also looked unmoved, as the judge ruled that she was not unfit to stand a “criminal trial lasting seven weeks” as her defence barrister, Femi Oni, had argued. Led in further testimony, he told the court the treatment has placed a psychological, mental and medical burden on her as it does on other dialysis patients. The professor also relied on the report of a consultant psychiatrist.
Prosecution witness, Dr David DuPont, said as part of normal clinical practice of interviewing potential donors, so as to be certain they were not being “forced or under duress or coerced nor induced to donate their organ”, he asked Nwamini these and other questions during a face-to-face meeting at the clinic last year February.
Continuing his testimony, DuPont said: “It came as a surprise to me that a young man of his age would want to do it.” The medical expert witness also told the court that when he asked further questions, including what he was doing, and what his parents do, Nwamini said he was “studying for his GCSE” and that his “parents are traders.”
Though, earlier in the evidence, crown prosecutor Davies, noted that the “application is Nwamini’s whereas the contact email is that of Obinna Obeta.” Under cross-examination from Davies, the prosecutor cited, among others, a dialogue between Obeta and one Dr Chris Agbo, on February 19, last year, about the visa application.
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