Innocent Eritrean man is freed by Italian authorities after one of the most stunningly inept cases of mistaken identity in modern history.
Eritrean farmer Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe was arrested in Khartoum in 2016 and whisked to Italy, where triumphant UK and Italian authorities announced that they had captured the notorious refugee smuggler Mered Medhanie, “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers” and “the boss of one of the most important criminal groups operating in central Africa and Libya.”
Almost immediately friends, relatives, and victims of the smuggler Mered Medhanie arose to say No, that’s not him, he doesn’t even look like him.
At the same time friends, relatives, and neighbors of the alarmingly missing young farmer Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe cried out, No, that’s not him, he doesn’t even look like him.
But rather than retracting the big dramatic announcement, made in the wake of urgent pressure to produce results, any results after the embarrassment of the deaths of hundreds of North African refugees trying to reach Europe, the Italian authorities and Britain’s National Crime Agency, who had worked together to seize and rendition the farmer, doubled down and insisted he was their man.
No witness who had met the smuggler was willing to testify that the man held in custody was the smuggler. In the three years since then the actual smuggler has posted messages on social media and has been photographed at weddings. The wife of the smuggler testified that the man held was not her husband. The mother of the arrested man gave a DNA test to prove he was not the smuggler, but Italian prosecutors refused to let it be submitted as evidence. A year later DNA from a son of the smuggler demonstrated he was no relative of the arrested man. To no avail. The prosecutors have held on to the bitter end, to this day still trying to throw the book at what could not more blatantly be an innocent man.
Earlier today Judge Alfredo Montalto of the criminal court of Palermo acquitted Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe of all charges. He’s free to go.
I realize justice for the innocent is the only important thing, but I like to think the judge gave the prosecutors a good chewing out.