Regeni Murder: Italy Orders Trial of 4 Egyptian Agents in Absentia
An Italian student Giulio Regeni’s bruised and battered body was discovered on an Egyptian highway, days after the doctoral thesis student disappeared from the capital, Cairo, on 25 January 2016. Today, a judge in Rome ruled out that the prosecutors in Italy can put the four Egyptian security forces agents charged in the kidnapping, torturing and killing of Regeni on trial in absentia.
Regeni, a Ph.D. student from the Cambridge University in Britain was researching labor unions in Cairo when he disappeared. Those charged in his disappearance and later murder following brutal torture — Maj. Madgi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, Col. Uhsam Helmi, Col. Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Maj. Gen. Tariq Sabir — can face up to 10 years in prison, if found guilty of the charges imposed against them.
As per court documents, one of the witnesses in the case saw Regeni handcuffed along with visible signs of having been tortured in the office of Egypt’s Interior Ministry. Another witness reportedly overheard a conversation between Maj. Sharif and a colleague, where he was heard confessing to the event in Nairobi, Kenya during a mission.
Many politicians in Italy have guaranteed their support for the Regeni family and promised to help in their quest for justice. However, extradition has lately become impossible due to Egypt’s lack of cooperation with the investigators in the case.
The identities and nationalities of the witnesses who contributed in the investigation has been kept anonymous to maintain their privacy and security. One of the 4 witnesses in the case claimed that a vendor who worked for Regeni betrayed him by spying on him for the National Security Agency.
After the kidnapping, torture, and killing of Regeni, when his body was found on the highway of Cairo it was so mutilated that only his nose helped his mother in identifying his body. Despite which, authorities in Egypt claim that Regeni was only a victim to ordinary robbers, even though human rights organization claim that the marks and bruises on his body resembled those resulting from torture at Egyptian facilities.
The case and Egypt’s failure in cooperating with the Italian investigators have led to the straining of the African nation’s relations with Italy, to which it once was an ally in combating terrorism.
