“Absolutely untraceable” accused. Before the Rome Assize Court, the new trial opens on Tuesday February 20 of four members of the Egyptian security services accused of torturing an Italian student to death in 2016 in Cairo. He should not bring any revelations about this affair, which has poisoned relations between Egypt and Italy, given that the four accused – General Tareq Saber, Colonels Aser Kamal and Hicham Helmi and Commander Magdi Cherif – are absent and therefore judged by default (in absentia).
“This is a very important day,” said the victim’s parents, Claudio and Paola Regeni, as they arrived at court Tuesday morning, in front of a “Truth for Giulio Regeni” banner bearing the Amnesty International logo. Political figures, including center-left MP Laura Boldrini, came to lend their support.
The accused are accused of kidnapping while Commander Cherif is accused of having given Giulio Regeni, then aged 28, the blows which caused his death from respiratory failure.
On January 25, 2016, this doctoral student at the University of Cambridge was kidnapped by unknown persons and his body was found mutilated a few days later in the suburbs of the Egyptian capital. He was doing research on unions, a very sensitive subject in Egypt.
Defendants ‘won’t serve their sentences’
In October 2021, a first trial in absentia in Rome of the four men prosecuted for kidnapping, torture and murder was suspended sine die as soon as it opened. The court noted the impossibility of prosecuting them on the grounds that they must have been officially informed of the proceedings against them, while Egypt has always refused to provide their contact details to Italian justice.
The Italian constitutional court overturned this decision in September, paving the way for the new trial. The four accused “are absolutely impossible to find”, confirmed last week to Agence France-Presse Colonel Kamal’s court-appointed lawyer, Tranquillino Sarno, recalling that “Egypt has always denied that its services have kidnapped and killed Regeni.” “What is certain is that even if they are found guilty, they will not serve their sentence,” added Mr. Tranquillino.
Standoff between Italy and Egypt
In December 2021, the special parliamentary commission on the death of Giulio Regeni concluded, after two years of investigations, that the Egyptian security services were responsible for his death: “Responsibility for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Giulio Regeni rests directly on the security apparatus of the Arab Republic of Egypt and in particular on members of the National Security”.
According to Italian investigators, the four members of the Egyptian National Security “tortured [the student] for days by inflicting burns, kicks, punches and using bladed weapons and sticks”, before To kill him. A thesis rejected by Cairo: in December 2020, the Egyptian prosecutor’s office had also cleared them, ruling out any legal action. Italy has, on several occasions, accused the Egyptian authorities of not cooperating, or even of leading Italian investigators towards false leads.
