Italy extends custody for 'people smuggler'

Rome (AFP) - An Italian public prosecutor has rejected a request to release from custody an Eritrean man who says he was mistakenly arrested on suspicion of heading a major people smuggling network.

The prosecutor in Palermo, Sicily, ruled late Tuesday that there was sufficient evidence against the man, who was extradited from Sudan to Italy on June 6, to warrant his continued detention, according to media reports Wednesday.

Authorities identified the man as Medhanie Yehdego Mered, thought to be a 35-year-old trafficking kingpin known as "the general" accused of sending thousands of migrants to Europe and hundreds to their deaths at sea.

But people claiming to be family and friends of the arrested man have come forward to say that he is Mered Tesfamariam, a carpenter who was trying to get to the United States and had nothing to do with trafficking.

His lawyer told a judge last week that his client did not even speak Arabic, unlike the alleged smuggling mastermind.

Mered has been on an international wanted list since last year after being identified as the man who organised the packing of migrants 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.

He is accused of smuggling up to 8,000 migrants a year into Europe and his arrest had been hailed by Italy, Sudan and Britain had hailed his capture as a significant blow to the people smuggling business.

Some 50,000 migrants and asylum seekers have reached Italy from Africa so far this year and more than 10,000 have perished in the Mediterranean since 2014 while trying to reach Europe.