Kingpin or pawn? WHAT’S in a name? For an Eritrean man hauled before a judge in Palermo, Sicily, on June 10th, the answer could be many years in an Italian jail. If, as he claims, he is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, he is a refugee and a victim of mistaken identity. But if, as the prosecution maintains, he is Medhanie Yehdego Mered, then—according to British and Italian investigators—he is a ruthless criminal, one of the masterminds behind the best-organised route funnelling migrants from Africa to Europe. Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said it had tracked him to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where he was arrested on May 24th.
Mr Mered (or Mr Berhe) was extradited to Italy and jailed. Prosecutors in Sicily, who first identified Mr Mered as a key figure in the migrant-smuggling business, want him tried on charges of running an operation in 2013 that ended in the deaths of 359 people, when a boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Yet defence witnesses say the jailed man fled Eritrea for Sudan in the hope of joining relatives in Europe or America. The defendant’s counsel has asked the court for a…
The Economist: Europe
