Eritrean extradited to Italy denies being 'most wanted' people trafficker

An Eritrean man extradited from Sudan to Italy on suspicion of being the head of a people trafficking ring has told investigators he is not the man they want, his lawyer said on Friday.

The suspect, identified by Italian authorities as Medhanie Yehdego Mered, 35, is accused of shipping thousands of people to Europe and sending some to their deaths in the Mediterranean.

But Italian prosecutors admitted on Thursday that they were checking his identity after reports that the arrested man was the victim of a case of mistaken identity.

Lawyer Michele Calantropo said his client "denied being the suspect and also denied being linked in any way to a trafficking network", when questioned by Italian magistrates.

Sudan's interior ministry, Italian police and Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) had made much of the arrest of Mered - dubbed "the general" and described as "cynical and unscrupulous" - in Khartoum at the end of May and his deportation to Italy this week.

But family and friends soon came forward to say the man pictured being dragged off a plane in Rome was not "the general".

Calantropo was hired by a woman claiming to be the sister of the detainee, a man she named as Mered Tesfamariam.

Segem Tasfamariam Berhe, who said she had recognised her 27-year-old brother in the footage, told Italian media he had nothing to do with human trafficking.

"I want to tell Italian police my brother is innocent, he is not the man they are looking for. Please, investigators, release my brother," she was quoted as saying from Khartoum by Italy's Rai News.

From Eritrea's capital of Asmara, a woman claiming to be his stepsister, Saliem Kesete, told the Italian broadcaster Mered Tesfamariam "was a carpenter, with a family"... an "innocent man" who "wanted to go to the US. Europe was his second choice".

The suspect Medhanie Yehdego Mered, on a wanted list since 2015 for people smuggling, is accused of packing people onto a boat that sank in 2013 off the Italian island of Lampedusa, claiming at least 360 lives in one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean.

Referred to in wiretapped conversations between his alleged subordinate traffickers as "the general", Mered is accused of organising the smuggling of up to 8,000 people a year on migrant boats.

Italy, Sudan and Britain had hailed his capture as a significant blow to the people smuggling business as Europe moves to stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean.

According to the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR), over 48,500 people have arrived in Italy by boat so far this year.

More than 10,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean to Europe since 2014.