ITALY ABANDONS ‘WRONG MAN’ EXTRADITION CASE

Edmond Arapi with his wife, Georgina, and youngest child

THE INDEPENDENT - JOHN ASTON and STEPHEN HOWARD

The Italian authorities today abandoned a bid to extradite a father of three for murder after admitting they had "got the wrong man".

Edmond Arapi was convicted by an Italian court in his absence in 2006 and sentenced to 16 years in jail for the murder of Castillo Marcello, who was stabbed to death in Genoa in October 2004.

Lawyers for the Italian government said they were withdrawing the extradition request after conceding that Mr Arapi was the victim of stolen identity.

Jago Russell, chief executive of Fair Trials International, said: "We are thrilled that Edmond Arapi can now wake up from the nightmare of the last year.

"His case is clear evidence that countries requesting extradition sometimes get it wrong. Italian and British authorities have taken a commonsense approach to this case.

"We hope European countries will now work together to reform the EU's fast-track extradition system to prevent similar cases of injustice in future."

Fair Trials International supported Mr Arapi's case, saying he had a "compelling" alibi that he did not leave the UK between 2000/06.

If extradited, Edmond faced the "nightmare" of being forced to part from his wife, a newborn baby and his two young daughters, aged three and seven, to spend years in a foreign jail.