Italian prosecutor demands prison sentence for alleged trafficking leader

By Wladimir Pantaleone

PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors on Monday sought a 14-year prison sentence for an alleged human trafficking ringleader extradited from Sudan in 2016, rejecting suggestions they had the wrong man.

The suspect, identified in court as Medhanie Yehdego Mered, is accused of being a ruthless human trafficker who ran an international network that made millions of dollars bringing migrants to Europe from Libya via sea routes murderous.

The accused claims his real name is Medhanie Tesfamariam Behre and claims he was a poor refugee from Eritrea living quietly in the Sudanese capital Khartoum when he was kidnapped from a cafe during a police operation international.

Some of Mered's alleged victims said they did not recognize the man in the dock, while relatives of the alleged trafficking mastermind also said it was a case of mistaken identity .

However, Italian prosecutors Calogero Ferrara and Claudio Camilleri insisted during proceedings spanning three years that the ideal man had been arrested, in part thanks to the help of Britain's National Crime Agency.

On Monday, they completed their summary by presenting the court with a 699-page document demanding that the accused be sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined 50,000 euros ($56,180).

They acknowledged that the photograph of the accused released by prosecutors before his arrest was not that of the man ultimately arrested in Khartoum, but said they knew the image was false and that it did not should never have been published.

They added that there had been a “press campaign” to try to cover up the evidence and protect the trafficker, nicknamed “the general”.

“It has been demonstrated that the man identified as (Mered) is the one who gathered in Sudan (…) a significant number of migrants who he then sent to Libya to human traffickers,” they wrote prosecutors.

“After having kept (the migrants) in a state of semi-detention within real “concentration camps”, they were then embarked (on boats bound for Europe),” they added.

At the time of the accused's arrest, some 360,000 migrants had crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Italy in just two years. That number has since surpassed 600,000, but flows have slowed significantly over the past two years as successive governments in Rome have cracked down on migrant smuggling.

Prosecutors also requested prison terms for co-defendants accused of being part of Mered's smuggling ring who were arrested in Italy, including 10-year sentences and 40,000 euro fines for Aforia Eyasu, Andebrahan Tareke and Arouna Said Traoré.

The defense is expected to finalize its presentation in early July with a verdict expected later that month.

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(Reporting by Wladimir Pantaleone; writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by Mark Heinrich)