Man jailed for crime committed by lookalike brother is freed after 18 months

26 January 2024 , 13:09

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Ivan Petrelli (left) with his doppelgänger brother (Image: Jam Press)

A man who spent almost a year and a half in prison and then house arrest for a crime committed by his lookalike brother is now seeking compensation.

Ivan Petrelli was arrested in October 2018 on suspicion of kidnap for ransom and assault in Italy and was identified as a suspect by one of the victims. He and five others were accused of taking revenge on two people they believed had stolen from the house of the dad of one of the members of the group. The pair were forcibly taken to a secluded field near Carmiano, Italy, where they were showered with kicks and punches.

The two pals were then ordered to hand over €8,000 (£6,800) to “compensate” for the alleged theft. When Ivan, 45, was first questioned by the police, he exercised his right to remain silent but he later decided to plead innocent.

His sat nav and mobile phone data corroborated his claim that he was elsewhere with others on the day of the assault in September, 2018, but judges in nearby Lecce ruled his claim of innocence as unreliable and so it was thrown out. Petrelli's dead-ringer brother Mimmo came clean to the police about how the events really unfolded as did Ivan’s co-suspects and even the wife of one of the victims, who was present when the pair were snatched - which led to Ivan’s release on bail in January 2020.

But a month later, judges sentenced him to 11 years in prison and this sentence was finally overturned on appeal. By the time Ivan was found innocent, he’d spent almost a year-and-a-half between remand and house arrest. After he was ruled innocent he told Corriere del Mezzogiorno: “Thank God this bad nightmare is over. I have never lost hope of being acquitted from this unpleasant situation, because when you are innocent you believe in justice, even if this story, in some moments, It led me to have some doubts.

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"From one day to the next I found myself in prison, torn from the arms of my wife and daughter, locked up in the maximum security section of Lecce prison for something I didn't commit." He has now returned to court in Lecce, but this time to ask for €300,000 (£256,000) in compensation for his ordeal, which he says has also affected his family. The case is ongoing.

Tim Hanlon