Italy demands probe into student’s slaying in Egypt

Rome // Italy on Thursday demanded that Egypt authorise a joint investigation into the violent death of an Italian student who mysteriously disappeared in Cairo last month.

The body of Giulio Regeni was found with signs of torture, including multiple stab wounds and cigarette burns, by the side of a highway on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital, an investigating prosecutor Ahmed Nagi.

Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University PhD student, went missing in Cairo on January 25 – the fifth anniversary of the uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

His body was found on Wednesday along the Cairo-Alexandria Road and was positively identified by his roommate, said the prosecutor who leads the investigation team on the case.

Mr Nagi said the cause of death was still under investigation but “all of his body, including his face” had bruises, cuts from stabbings and burns from cigarettes. He said it appeared to have been a “slow death”.

Another person with knowledge of the case said that the body was “partially burned” and also said his body was found on the same highway. Italy’s foreign ministry summoned Cairo’s ambassador in Rome saying it expected “maximum cooperation from the Egyptian authorities at every level”.

Italy also told the Egyptian ambassador it wants its own experts to be fully involved in a joint investigation into what happened, and requested that the body be returned to Italy as soon as possible.

Regeni, whose studies included Arabic and Arab literature, was from Fiumicello near Udine in northeastern Italy.

He was in Cairo doing research for his doctoral thesis and was last seen on January 25 when he left his suburban home with the intention of travelling by metro to meet a friend in the city centre.

Cairo was extremely quiet on the day he disappeared as a result of the authorities having ordered a security clampdown on what was the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring uprising.

Rome said the ambassador, Amr Mostafa Kamal Helmy, had given assurances that the Egyptian authorities would do their utmost to find those responsible for criminal act.

Italian economic development minister Federica Guidi, who was in Cairo when Regeni’s body was discovered, cancelled the final day of a trade mission involving some 60 Italian companies in reaction to the news.

Hours earlier she had, according to the Italian media, urged Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi to intervene personally in the investigation into Regeni’s disappearance, underlining the potential for the case to disrupt normally close diplomatic ties between Rome and Cairo.

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi was the first western leader to receive former army chief Mr El Sisi after his 2013 ouster of his predecessor Mohammed Morsi.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press