Mattarella demands ‘full response' from Egypt on Regeni

Sergio Mattarella

  ROME - On the fifth anniversary, on Monday, of the fatal abduction of the Italian graduate Giulio Regeni, the Italian President Sergio Mattarella has said that “we are still waiting for a full and adequate response from the Egyptian authorities.”

  Regeni, from Fiumicello, was in Egypt doing research for his PhD at Cambridge University when he was kidnapped and tortured to death, finally found on Feb. 3, 2016, mutilated in a ditch off the Cairo-Alexandria Highway. He was allegedly suspected of being a spy, for his PhD research into Egyptian trade unions.

  In March 2016, four gang members, believed at the time to be responsible, were killed by police in a shootout, though Cairo officials later denied that they were involved. In November 2020, four Egyptian security officials were charged by Italian magistrates, with the trial due to take place in Italy, with the preliminary hearing on April 29.

  There have over the last five years been many accusations levelled against Egyptian authorities for their lack of cooperation, and their evident involvement in the murder.

  In Mattarella’a speech on Monday, he said, “five years have passed since the capture of Giulio Regeni in Cairo, tortured and barbarically killed by his ruthless tormentors. A young Italian man, committed to the completion of his course of study, saw all his plans for life cruelly ripped from him, with such ferocity as to inflict a deep wound in the soul of every Italian.”

  He expressed his “sympathy and solidarity with his parents, that in their excruciating grief have been capable in the last five years of putting every energy into obtaining the truth, in asking that responsibility is established, and in arguing for those principles of justice that constitute the fundamental principles of every human society and the unalienable right of every person.”

  Mattarella praised the work of the Italian prosecutors, led by Michele Prestipino, who have, in the face of many hindrances on the part of the Egyptian authorities, reconstructed the nine days of the Regeni’s capture, and described the cruelty Regeni suffered allegedly at the hands of the Egyptian secret services. 

  Mattarella added that, “the action of the Italian Prosecution in Rome, through many difficulties, have brought to a conclusion investigations that have painted a picture of grave responsibility that will soon be highlighted in the course of a trial.”

  He concluded by saying that the result is “universally awaited, by his family, by the institutions of the Republic and by the entire European public.”

 

 

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Giulio Regeni