Eritrean smuggler trial in Sicily has wrong man, say former victims
Source: The Guardian
Eritrean smuggler trial in Sicily has wrong man, say former victims
Family of Medhanie Berhe and victims of Medhanie Mered to claim
mistaken identity by British and Italian police
Lorenzo Tondo and Meron Estefanos in Palermo and Patrick Kingsley
Sunday 3 July 2016 15.22 BST
The trial of an alleged Eritrean smuggler extradited to Italy will formally begin in Sicily this week, with two of the smugglers former victims expected to testify that the Italians have captured the wrong man.
Italian prosecutors, British police and British diplomats all still claim that the man to stand trial on Monday is Medhanie Yehdego Mered, a notorious 35-year-old people smuggler who has sent thousands of Eritreans through the Sahara desert, and then onwards across the Mediterranean to Sicily.
But two of the smugglers victims, along with the detainees family, have flown to Sicily to testify that in a bungled case of mistaken identity the detainee is in fact Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 29-year-old former dairy worker with no connection to the smuggling business.
If the judge accepts their testimony, the case will be a considerable embarrassment for Italian investigators, Britains National Crime Agency (NCA) and the British embassy in Sudan, who all claimed to have played a crucial role in the arrest and extradition of the man from Khartoum last month.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/03/eritrean-smuggler-trial-sicily-wrong-man-say-former-victims