{Authorities identify suspect as Medhane Yehdego Mered, but witnesses reportedly say it is a case of mistaken identity.}<\/p>\n
Italian prosecutors are looking into claims that they got the wrong man in a major operation that led to the arrest and extradition of an Eritrean man presented as a major human smuggler.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Italian and British anti-crime agencies announced the arrest of Medhane Yehdego Mered, who was caught in Sudan and flown to Italy to face trial. <\/p>\n
Italian police released a video of the man they said was Mered arriving at an airport in Rome, but Meron Estefanos, the Sweden-based executive director of the Eritrean Initiative on Human Rights, told Al Jazeera it was a case of mistaken identity.<\/p>\n
Estefanos, who says she has interviewed Mered in the past, said the man in the footage was not Mered, but Medhane Tesfamariam Kidane, an Eritrean refugee living in Sudan.<\/p>\n
“These are two different people,” she said from Stockholm. “If you notice the one that the Italians have, he is shorter and younger, while the real Medhane Mered is older, a 36-year-old much taller [man]. If you see the pictures close-up, it just doesn’t add up.”<\/p>\n
Estefanos also said she had spoken to relatives and friends of the man transferred to Italy who all “confirmed” that it was a different person.<\/p>\n
“Just to be sure, I also interviewed many of the refugees that the actual smuggler has smuggled into Europe, and all say that it is not the same person,” Estefanos added. <\/p>\n
“He happened to have the same first name as the smuggler, but [it is] not the right person,” she said. “I would not put my credibility just like this. I hope for the sake of this innocent young man, that they release him as soon as possible and apologise to him.” <\/p>\n
Borderless: Undercover with the People Smugglers<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday, Francesco Lo Voi, chief prosecutor in the city of Palermo, had said the authorities were “carrying out the appropriate checks.<\/p>\n
“At the moment all we can say is that the identification, arrest, handover and extradition to Italy of the fugitive were communicated to us in an official manner by [Britain’s] National Crime Agency and by Sudanese authorities,” the ANSA news agency quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
The suspect is being held in Rome’s Rebibbia jail and is due to face his first interrogation on Friday, ANSA said.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the National Crime Agency (NCA) in London said it was too soon to comment on media reports, and referred further questions to Italian authorities.<\/p>\n
‘Completely innocent’<\/p>\n
The suspect has been described as a ruthless criminal known as the “General,” a self-styled name referring to Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the NCA said he was “one of the world’s most-wanted people smugglers”, while Italian police executive Renato Cortese said in a Wednesday press conference that he led “a criminal network that turns over millions of euros”.<\/p>\n
But unnamed friends of the arrested, quoted by the BBC, said his real name was Mered Tesfamariam. A woman in Norway who said she was his sister told the BBC’s Newsnight programme that her brother was “completely innocent”.<\/p>\n
The Guardian, also quoting friends, named the man as Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, and said he was a 27-year-old refugee arrested in a street in Khartoum late last month.<\/p>\n
“It’s incredible – he’s not a human trafficker. He’s from my family,” Fshaye Tasfai, an Eritrean refugee in Sicily, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Two lawyers have been named to defend the Eritrean man held in Rome. Neither was immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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