'Most wanted people smuggler' tells police they arrested the wrong person in operation with British intelligence

Police said they captured Eritrean smuggler Medhanie Yehdego Mered but the arrested man says he is Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 27-year-old refugee

A photo of Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, 27, supplied by his family (Supplied)

A refugee extradited to Italy on accusations of being one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers has told police they arrested the wrong person.

British police and intelligence agencies were part of the operation to capture Medhanie Yehdego Mered, who is accused of sending thousands of migrants across the Mediterranean and being responsible for a refugee boat sinking in 2013.

But lawyers of the man arrested say he is a different person - Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe - a 27-year-old refugee allegedly detained in a case of mistaken identity.

Medhanie Mered, a 35-year-old Eritrean man accused of heading a prolific people smuggling operation (NCA)

Italian magistrates interviewed the Eritrean suspect for the first time on Friday, with legal representation.

“My client has denied all the allegations and says he is not the person in question,” lawyer Michele Calantropo told reporters outside a prison in Rome. “He is another man...and doesn't understand the meaning of this arrest.”

He called for his client’s immediate release, saying magistrates needed to urgently investigate the question of his identity.

It comes a day after relatives and friends of Mr Berhe told The Independent they were shocked to see him in footage of the extradition.

A relative in Khartoum, who did not want to be named, said: “You can see by his hair, his appearance, by everything that he is someone different (to the smuggler).

“For two weeks we didn’t know where he was and then we saw the news on the television…we want help.”

If confirmed to be a case of mistaken identity, the error would be a huge embarrassment for British and Italian authorities, who hailed the supposed extradition of Mered, nicknamed “the General”, as a rare victory in the struggle against people smuggling.

A legal source told Reuters that Italian and British investigators, who used information gained by GCHQ, had given the Sudanese authorities precise information about the mobile phone Mered was using and believed the arrested man had the phone.

But European authorities did not have any access to the arrested man in Sudan following the arrest.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) hailed the capture of 35-year-old Mered earlier this week, saying he was a criminal “mastermind” responsible for hundreds of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, but people watching footage of the handcuffed suspect being led off a plane recognised him as Berhe.

Five of Mr Berhe’s family members and friends told The Independent they recognised him on the news on Wednesday after weeks of desperate attempts to find out where he had been taken.

A man claiming to be his housemate said police raided their home in Khartoum and detained his friend without explanation a fortnight ago.

“They took him without any warning, without saying anything – we didn’t know anything,” Ermias said.

“We didn’t know where he was but then we saw on the internet he is in Italy.”

He said he recognised his housemate immediately when he saw photos of the arrested suspect in news footage.

“He’s not a smuggler, he doesn’t even work, his family have to send him money,” Ermias said.

“He’s a kind person, he’s not a criminal. They have the wrong person - the smuggler is still out there.”

Mr Berhe’s brother, Fassahaye, said his brother escaped Eritrea in 2014 and travelled to Sudan via Ethiopia, arriving last year, and had never been to Libya.

“You can see by their faces that they don’t even look similar,” he added. “It’s just a big mistake.”

A spokesperson for the NCA said it was aware of the claims of mistaken identity.

“This is a complex multi-partner operation and it is too soon to speculate about these claims,” he added. "The NCA is confident in its intelligence gathering process."