Eritrean refugee mistaken for a migrant trafficker:the Italian Guardian journalist discovers the judicial error, the prosecutor sues him

Of the Kafkaesque affair in which the journalist of the Guardian Lorenzo Tondo, intercepted by the Palermo Prosecutor's Office in the judicial case he was covering for his newspaper, we had spoken in this article.The story now gets rich of new chapters.Too bad, though, it's not a novel.

Read also >> The Italian Guardian journalist 'intercepted' by the Palermo Prosecutor's Office:“They are discrediting my work”

For the Guardian Tondo was following the so-called “Mered” case, a court case concerning the arrest of a dangerous Eritrean migrant trafficker, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, better known as “The General”.

In June 2016, the Palermo Prosecutor's Office, in collaboration with the British National Crime Agency (NCA), announced that it had arrested Medhanie Yehdego Mered, accused of leading an organization based in Libya that managed the trafficking of Eritrean migrants to 'Europe.In his articles, however, Tondo had identified of the elements that called into question the conclusions reached by the Palermo Prosecutor's Office and had put forward the hypothesis that the man who ended up in prison was not the dangerous migrant trafficker, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, but Medhanie Tesfamariam Behre, an asylum seeker who milked cows in Sudan before trying to reach Europe.In short, there had been a mistaken identity and what the NCA and the Palermo Prosecutor's Office had defined in 2016 as "the arrest of the year" seemed to be a miscarriage of justice.

In the following months, Tondo keep writing in the British newspaper bringing to light more and more aspects that favored a judicial error:the tales of family of the accused, the data coming from the control of his Facebook profile, even the wife's testimony of the real trafficker, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, supported the hypothesis of mistaken identity and that the wrong Medhanie was in prison.

The Prosecutor's Office, however, continued on its way and Lorenzo Tondo continued to follow the case.Until, in November 2017, during a court hearing, the journalist from Guardian discovered that he had been intercepted and that some recorded conversations (with one of his journalistic sources) had been deemed relevant in the "Mered" case, although, reading the exchanges included in the document filed by the public prosecutor, what was reported seemed completely irrelevant from the point of view investigative view.An act that Tondo at the time he had defined harmful to the right to freedom of the press and to his profession as a journalist.

In the meantime, the evidence that supports the theory of mistaken identity becomes more and more consistent.In May 2018 DNA testing also arrives of Mered's wife and son and of the man in prison, Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, who seems to erase all doubts.Until the summer of 2019 when Judge Alfredo Montalto of the second section of the Court of Assizes issues the release sentence.Behre is sentenced to 5 years for contacting a trafficker to help his cousin Samson Gherie reach Libya, but it wasn't Mered.Having already spent 3 years in prison, his immediate release was ordered.In August 2019 is accepted his application for political asylum and Behre can leave the Pian del Lago repatriation center in Caltanissetta.

In its report of over 400 pages, the Court of Assizes spoke of "serious negligence".According to the judges, in some cases the prosecutors' accusations "appeared patently inconsistent and inadequate".The doubts raised by Lorenzo Tondo - who published the book "The General" on the case in 2018 - were, therefore, well founded.

But that's the end of this whole story it hasn't been written yet. 

The prosecutors have lodged an appeal against the ruling of the Court of Assizes.The new hearings began on October 27 and the sentence is expected in February 2022.

Between December 2019 and January 2020, the then public prosecutor, Calogero Ferrara, who has now become a delegated prosecutor in the new "European Public Prosecutor's Office", filed two lawsuits for defamation against Tondo for a post on Facebook and for a series of articles published in the Guardian which, according to Ferrara, would contain inaccurate information.The first hearing for one of the two complaints has been set for February 2, 2022.The prosecutor also sued Republic and journalist Romina Marceca for her coverage of the trial.

Last week the two lawsuits for defamation by the prosecutor Ferrara have been reported by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on the Council of Europe Platform for the Safety of Journalists (created in 2015 “to promote the protection of journalism and the safety of journalists”) as potential acts of “harassment and intimidation”.The case report was included in the category "persecution and intimidation of journalists" attributable to the State.In the last year, reports the Council of Europe Platform, there were 213 reports in 33 different countries.In 79 cases there was a response from the government involved.None of the reports so far have been “resolved.”Italy has not yet responded to the report on Lorenzo Tondo.

“Although the mandatory mediation attempt ended on November 5, 2020, prosecutor Ferrara waited almost a year before confirming the legal actions which were served shortly before the start of the second 'Mered' trial.According to critics, this could be a strategic move to intimidate and prevent Tondo from following the new hearings,” reads the report.

"According to the Council of Europe, this move would denote a malicious use of the judicial instrument, no longer aimed at obtaining justice but at putting a gag on me, because since this whole judicial affair began, for reasons of "prudence" I have no longer been able to write on the 'Mered' case for the Guardian.Not only that, the summons comes a few months after the appeal sentence of the 'Mered' trial", he wrote Lorenzo Tondo in a post on Facebook."When you work on an investigation, when you really put your heart into it, it will follow you until the end of your days.For better or for worse.Because if on the one hand it had a positive impact on one or more people, on the other, irremediably, that investigation will certainly have bothered someone.It will have messed up his plans.He may have overturned them.I am certainly privileged, because I can count on the legal support of Guardian.But I think of all those journalists, precarious, underpaid, forced to deal with reckless complaints around Italy, without any support.This battle that we will carry on is also for them.Because we are tired of your intimidation."

The national federation of the Italian press and other international organizations they expressed solidarity to Lorenzo Tondo.

“Criticizing a prosecutor in Italy is risky.If a journalist dares to do so, it is likely that the public prosecutor will sue him for defamation and force him to defend himself in court and bear the related costs,” he said al Guardian Alberto Spampinato, director of Ossigeno per l'formazione, an organization created to defend the rights of journalists.“Events of this type are not rare and put journalists in serious difficulty.Ossigeno per l'formazione will continue to support Lorenzo Tondo in this legal battle and will continue to do so, alongside the Guardian and the community of European journalists."

Oxygen for Information he also communicated of having assumed the defense of Lorenzo Tondo and having entrusted it to the lawyer Andrea Di Pietro for the posts published on Facebook.Also the Guardian chose the lawyer Di Pietro to defend Tondo for the articles published in the English newspaper.

«The case of Lorenzo Tondo is emblematic of the difficulties that independent journalism is experiencing today in Italy», comment to Tomorrow Andrea Di Pietro.For the lawyer, Ferrara decided to «drag him to trial without his newspaper, to make him feel even more isolated and weak with respect to the power of the State.But the Guardian he did not abandon his journalist:will remain alongside him, demonstrating what it means to truly defend the freedom of the press in all fields."

Contacted by Guardian, prosecutor Ferrara said he had asked his lawyer to comment on the matter.

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