Italian police have arrested a Somali man accused of raping and torturing asylum seekers fleeing Libya on a boat which sank off the island of Lampedusa last month killing more than 365 migrants.
Mouhamud Elmi Muhidin, 34, faces charges of kidnapping, sexual assault, people trafficking and criminal association with the goal of aiding illegal immigration after he was identified by survivors.
Some 130 Eritreans were assaulted in Libay according to police Some 130 migrants from Eritrea told police they were held for ransom at a detention centre in the Libyan desert by people traffickers from Somalia, Libya and Sudan.
A 17-year-old Eritrean girl interviewed by police said: "They forced us to watch our men being tortured with various methods including batons, electric shocks to the feet; whoever rebelled was tied up."
The migrants were forced to pay up to $3,500 (£2,180) for their freedom and their onward journey to the Libyan coast and a boat that due to take them to Italy.
Those who survived the crossing are held at detention centres in Italy "The women who could not pay were assaulted," the girl said.
She also described in her own sexual assault, claiming Muhidin was one of three men who raped her.
"They threw me on the ground, held me down and poured fuel on my head. It burnt my hair, then my face, then my eyes.
"Then the three of them raped me without protection. After a quarter of an hour I was beaten and taken back to the house."
Muhidin was arrested on Lampedusa after he was spotted by some of the survivors on the island. He has now been flown to Sicily where he faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Police also held this Tunisian man suspected of driving one of the boats Investigators say he arrived on the island last week and had been staying in the local migrant centre, pretending to be one of the refugees.
"He was one of the leaders of the trafficking organisation," a police spokeswoman said, adding that he may have come to Italy to look for criminal contacts.
Italian authorities have vowed to crack down on the people trafficking rings that have been behind the influx of more than 35,000 asylum seekers so far this year to the country's coasts.
Most of them come from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria and Italy has asked for the European Union to step up assistance in dealing with the arrivals and countering the criminal networks behind them.
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