The accused in Italy’s highest-profile human trafficking case has spoken in court for the first time since his trial started more than year ago to claim he was the victim of mistaken identity.

“This is not my name. This is not my surname. This is not my identity,” the man, who Italian authorities say is the notorious Eritrean people smuggler, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, told a court in Palermo, Sicily. “You are prosecuting the wrong man. This is all absurd.’’ The man says he is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 29-year-old refugee and former milk-hand, wrongly arrested in 2016 in Sudan and extradited to Italy with the help of the British Foreign Office and the UK National Crime Agency, which had participated in the operation.

After more than a year of proceedings, Italian prosecutors have failed to produce a single witness to testify against a man they have accused of being one of the most influential people-smugglers in north Africa, who sent thousands of Eritrean refugees from Libya to Italy. His appearance on Tuesday marked the opening of a new trial after the prosecutor, Gery Ferrara, who led the investigation against Mered from the beginning, petitioned to transfer the trial to the Palermo assize court, which handles more serious criminal offences, such as Mafia-related murders and kidnappings.(theguardian)…[+]