Italian and British authorities arrested wrong man, say notorious smuggler's victims, wife, brother

The accusations create huge potential embarrassment for both the Italian authorities, who previously claimed to have seized “the boss of one of the most important criminal groups operating in central Africa and Libya”, and Britain’s National Crime Agency, which was involved in the Mered investigation and hailed the capture of “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers”.

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Francesco Lo Voi, the Italian chief prosecutor, conceded the situation was unusual but would not comment further. “We are leading the appropriate investigations about this unusual situation,” he told the Guardian. “At the moment all we can say is that the report of the extradited person, his arrest and his extradition in Italy were disclosed in an official document from the [UK] National Crime Agency, and by Interpol and the Sudanese authorities. We’ll have more details tomorrow.”

The NCA did not update an earlier statement saying that it was “confident in its intelligence gathering process”.

On Thursday night, its website still maintained the agency had helped achieve the arrest of “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers”, in a post that seemed to have confused Mered’s first name for his last name.

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New photographs appear to show one of north Africa’s most wanted people-smugglers celebrating at a family wedding, giving fresh momentum to claims that a man accused of being the smuggler, and set to face trial in Italy this week, is the victim of mistaken identity.

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Some of the smuggler’s former victims have also testified that the man on trial is not the man who smuggled them and an estimated 13,000 others between Sudan, Libya and southern Europe. One asked to remain anonymous because he fears the real smuggler is still at large in Sudan, and could intimidate his family there.

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The revelations raise further concerns about the competence of Italian and British anti-smuggling operations. In June, both countries presented Mered’s alleged arrest as a major victory in the fight to curb people-smuggling in north Africa, which has brought nearly 500,000 people to Italy in the past three years. The NCA hailed its “substantial” role in both tracking Mered down and liaising with the Sudanese authorities to secure his arrest. The FCO also praised its own “crucial” involvement in liaising with Sudan.

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The FCO admitted that it had not checked whether the man extradited to Italy was the man sought by British police, but said that concerns about the investigative process should be directed to the NCA and the Italian authorities. The NCA said it could not comment on a live case, while Roy Godding, the NCA operative who led the Mered investigation, did not respond to approaches made to him directly. The Italian prosecutors said: “No comment from us.”

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These disclosures are the latest in a series of revelations that raise questions about the prosecution’s case. It has already emerged that:

• Prosecutors could not provide a single witness to testify against Berhe.
  
• The prosecution’s chosen experts could not tell whether Berhe’s voice matched that heard in a 2014 wiretapping of a man said to be Mered.
  
• Berhe looks markedly different to the photographs of Mered released by prosecutors prior to Berhe’s arrest.
  
• Berhe’s high-school documents and Eritrean ID card suggest that he and Mered are different people.
  
• Gory pictures found on Berhe’s phone, which prosecutors claimed were photographs of his dead clients, were in fact downloaded from an Asian website.
  
• Two of Mered’s former passengers did not recognise Berhe, with one refusing to be quoted by name because he believed that Mered was still at large, and feared Mered would target him for speaking out.
  
  One of them, Anbes Yemane, a 23-year-old Eritrean student, said: “I know [Mered] very well, I can recognise him very well. That wasn’t him.”

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regdog said:

How much more evidence do they need that they have the wrong man, short of Mered Medhanie walking into court and saying "Hi."

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The accused in Italy’s highest-profile human trafficking case has spoken in court for the first time since his trial started more than year ago to claim he was the victim of mistaken identity.

“This is not my name. This is not my surname. This is not my identity,” the man, who Italian authorities say is the notorious Eritrean people smuggler, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, told a court in Palermo, Sicily. “You are prosecuting the wrong man. This is all absurd.’’

The man says he is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 29-year-old refugee and former milk-hand, wrongly arrested in 2016 in Sudan and extradited to Italy with the help of the British Foreign Office and the UK National Crime Agency, which had participated in the operation.

After more than a year of proceedings, Italian prosecutors have failed to produce a single witness to testify against a man they have accused of being one of the most influential people-smugglers in north Africa, who sent thousands of Eritrean refugees from Libya to Italy.

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His appearance on Tuesday marked the opening of a new trial after the prosecutor, Gery Ferrara, who led the investigation against Mered from the beginning, petitioned to transfer the trial to the Palermo assize court, which handles more serious criminal offences, such as Mafia-related murders and kidnappings.

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The defendant’s family, data from his Facebook account and even Mered’s wife, who has said the man on trial is not her husband, have lent support to his argument that he is the innocent victim of mistaken identity.

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The NCA said it could not comment on an ongoing case. Italian prosecutors also declined to comment.

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The mother of a man accused of being one of the world’s most dangerous human traffickers travelled from Eritrea to Sicily to undergo a DNA test which would prove that her son is the victim of a mistaken identity.

But her effort to free her son failed after Italian prosecutors refused to allow the test result to be submitted as evidence.

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Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, prosecutors insist the man captured in Khartoum is the real smuggler – even though they have not been able to find a single witness to testify against him.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the judge invited the prosecutors to reconsider allowing the DNA test to be submitted. The prosecutors postponed their final decision to the next hearing, on 9 November.

The NCA said it could not comment on a continuing case. Italian prosecutors also declined to comment.

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DNA from the three-year-old son of one of the world’s most wanted people-smugglers shows the man who has spent nearly two years in an Italian jail awaiting trial for his crimes is a victim of mistaken identity, lawyers have said.

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The DNA evidence reinforces the results of an earlier test on Berhe’s mother, Meaza Zerai Weldai, 59, who travelled to Palermo from the Eritrean capital, Asmara, last October. Analysis showed she was the mother of the detained man.

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It was also reported last year that Mered had been in jail in the United Arab Emirates, on charges of using a forged passport, at the time Italian prosecutors travelled to Sudan to arrest the suspect they believed was the people-smuggler.

A recent documentary by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT in collaboration with Guardian reporters revealed the trafficker known as “the General” is currently living in Uganda, spending his substantial earnings in nightclubs.

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Despite now overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Italian prosecutors continue to insist the man captured in Khartoum is the real smuggler – despite not being able to find a single witness to testify against him.

The NCA said it could not comment on a continuing case. Italian prosecutors also declined to comment.

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A Palermo judge has acquitted an Eritrean man of being a human trafficking kingpin, confirming he was the victim of mistaken identity when he was arrested more than three years ago in a joint operation between Italian and British authorities.

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...prosecutors continued to insist the man captured in Khartoum was the real smuggler and began waging an offensive against activists and journalists, wiretapping the phone conversations among reporters that exposed their alleged error and the journalists’ sources.

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Despite the fact he had not been able to provide a single witness to testify against Berhe, at the end of his five-hour closing remarks on 17 June the prosecutor Calogero Ferrara dismissed suggestions they had apprehended the wrong man and demanded a 14-year prison term.

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Among many factors that pointed to his innocence, including two DNA tests and an array of witnesses, was a documentary by the Swedish broadcaster SVT, in collaboration with the Guardian, which revealed that the “real” Mered was living in the Ugandan capital, spending his substantial earnings in Kampala nightclubs while Berhe faced up to 15 years in jail.

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In the last few months, as more than 44,000 signatures have been gathered in favour of Berhe’s release, hundreds of people have been protesting in Oslo, Stockholm, London and Frankfurt, calling for Italian authorities to release the arrested man. They are all Eritreans and many of them were trafficked to Europe by Mered, who appears to be still on the run.

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