ROME -- Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has criticised the “inexplicable” lack of collaboration from Cambridge University in the Giulio Regeni case. The Italian, killed in unknown circumstances in Cairo in February, was studying for a PhD there, but academics seem to have shown silence on the matter.

 “I asked the Prime Minister Theresa May to use her authority to ask teachers at Cambridge to work with judicial authorities in Italy,” said Renzi after a meeting with the British premier. “I do not understand why professors at such a prestigious university think that Italy would accept their silence, which to me seems inexplicable.” 

 “A young Italian was killed by torture. We owe it to his family to find out the truth. Whoever has it, in however small a measure, must give us their immediate help."

 The case blew up in the middle of June when Sergio Colaiocco, the prosecutor in charge of investigations into the death of the young researcher, flew to Cambridge with Giulio’s parents. They asked Regeni’s former professors for help in the matter, but this help was refused.

His tutor, Maha Abdrerrahman, refused to even respond to their initial questions, and the email she send a few days later to Italian magistrates contained answers deemed “categorically unsatisfactory,” according to investigators.

The detail is by no means an insignificant one: Abdrerrahman might know details that could shed light on just how Giulio came to his death, particularly since it was she that put him in contact with Rabab El Mahadi, the professor at the American University in Cairo in charge of supervising Regeni during his studies. 

 Cambridge University, however, denied the accusations, saying it was “ready to react quickly to any request for assistance from the Italian authorities.” The university added that “one individual academic at Cambridge received a request form Italian prosecutors and has already responded to all their questions on two occasions."

 Although the cause of Regeni’s murder remains unclear, authorities believe the Egyptian state was responsible. The 28-year-old had been carrying out research into Egyptian labour unions, a sensitive subject, and his work is suspected to have clashed with a general crackdown on rights activists, journalists and investigators. 

lej