An Eritrean national extradited to
Italy on Tuesday on human trafficking charges has admitted
making the phone calls investigator say prove he ran a vast
operation to smuggle migrants from Africa to Europe, but has
denied the charges, sources said Friday.
On Thursday friends of the extradited man, named as Mered
Medhanie, said that the police had got the wrong man.
They were quoted by the BBC as saying that the Eritrean
national first detained by Sudan in May and then extradited to
Italy this week is not Medhanie but a friend of theirs called
Mered Resfanarian, 28.
The man said Friday that he was indeed arrested in Sudan on
May 24 and admitted making the tapped phone calls which British
investigators say prove he was a trafficking boss.
He denied being a human trafficker.
But the mystery over his identity remained.
The man's friends told the BBC that Resfanarian has been
mistaken for the alleged smuggler and that he is innocent.
The BBC also published two photos, one portraying the man
believed to be Medhanie and the other the man said to be
Resfanarian, provided by his friends, including an Eritrean
national who said he cohabited with the 28-year-old in Sudan.
A Swedish journalist of Eritrean origin who interviewed
Mered last year also told Swedish daily Aftonbladet that the man
in the photo is not Mered but a refugee who lived in Khartoum.
Ha ammesso le telefonate
intercettate che, secondo gli inquirenti, proverebbero il suo
ruolo nella tratta dei migranti. Ha ammesso che il cellulare da
cui quelle telefonate erano partite, servito agli investigatori
inglesi della Nca per la sua localizzazione, e poi sequestrato
il giorno dell'arresto, era in suo uso. E ha affermato di essere
lui l'uomo arrestato dalla polizia Sudanese il 24 maggio in una
villa alla periferia di khartoum, fugando i dubbi di uno scambio
di persona dopo il fermo. Ma ha negato tutte le accuse
contestate dai magistrati, cioè di essere un capo del traffico
dei migranti
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