{"id":10409,"date":"2016-06-09T14:49:20","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T18:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=10409"},"modified":"2016-06-09T14:49:20","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T18:49:20","slug":"eritrean-refugee-wrongly-arrested-and-extradited-to-europe-on-mass-human-trafficking-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/10409","title":{"rendered":"Eritrean Refugee Wrongly Arrested and Extradited to Europe on Mass Human Trafficking Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Medhanie<\/a>Police in Britain and Italy are currently investigating the possibility that a suspected Eritrean human smuggler, who was extradited to Europe this week from Sudan, is the wrong man.<\/p>\n

Investigators in both countries celebrated the capture and extradition of Medhanie Yehdego Mered. The 35-year-old is described as one of the most wanted human traffickers in the world.<\/p>\n

Mered, who is also called the ‘General,’ allegedly runs an operation which spans from central Africa to Libya.<\/p>\n

Britain, Italy and Sudan collaborated in the investigations leading to Mered’s arrest on Tuesday. Britain tracked the suspect while Sudanese officials arrested him in El Diem, Khartoum.<\/p>\n

He was extradited to Italy on Wednesday, where he is expected to face human trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

However, British and Italian officials are unsure if Sudan arrested the right man. Investigators became skeptical after his family claimed that the arrest is a grave case of mistaken identity.<\/p>\n

The man, who was detained and extradited to Italy, is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe.\u00a0 BBC reported <\/a>that a woman in Norway claiming to be Berhe’s sister said he is “completely innocent” of the charges against him.<\/p>\n

According to the Guardian, friends and family claim that 27-year-old Berhe was arrested in Khartoum last month. He had reportedly been living in Sudan as a refugee after leaving Eritrea in 2014.<\/p>\n

Berhe and the Mered share a first name. However, his family claims that he has never been to Libya where Mered runs his operations.<\/p>\n

A Swedish-Eritrean journalist was the first to break the story<\/a> that Berhe may be a victim of false identity.<\/p>\n

“I have almost 400 people writing to me saying: I know this guy, he grew up with me,” Estefanos said. “This is the wrong person.”<\/p>\n

Estefanos interviewed Mered by phone during her research for a story about the treatment of Eritrean refugees in North Africa.<\/p>\n

“He admitted to smuggling 13,000 people,” she said. ” I have never seen any (Eritrean smuggler) become as big as him so quickly.”<\/p>\n

“I hope that the Italians admit that they have the wrong person and that they release the person immediately,” Estefanos said. “This is absurd.”<\/p>\n

Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA), which was involved in the investigations and arrest, has since called for calm following reports that a wrong suspect may have been taken into custody.<\/p>\n

“We have noted your report. This is a complex multi-partner operation and it is too took soon to speculate about these claims. The NCA is confident in its intelligence-gathering process,” an NCA statement read.<\/p>\n

If the claims are confirmed, it will be a blow to European officials hoping to stop the increasing human trafficking trade.<\/p>\n

Eritreans reportedly make up about 70,000 of the 320,000 people who have arrived in Italy via Libya in the past two years.<\/p>\n

Mered allegedly controlled about 4 percent of this market. His smuggling ring is said to be responsible for the death of hundreds of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.<\/p>\n

“Telephone interceptions gathered by the Italians confirmed Medhanie was organizing regular journeys across the Mediterranean and was also directly coordinating other people-smugglers responsible for land routes,” an NCA statement read.\u00a0 “During one recorded conversation Medhanie was heard laughing about the fatal overload of migrant ships.”<\/p>\n

Photo\/Palermo Today: Medhanie Yehdego Mered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police in Britain and Italy are currently investigating the possibility that a suspected Eritrean human smuggler, who was extradited to Europe this week from Sudan, is the wrong man. Investigators in both countries celebrated the capture and extradition of Medhanie…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,2872,2860,1],"tags":[473,4846,581,58,324,4848,4847,4968],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10411,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409\/revisions\/10411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}