CAIRO — A leader of the street vendor’s union, officials of whom are suspected by investigators of arranging Giulio Regeni’s murder, made frequent visits to Egyptian security headquarters and met with officials half a year before the researcher was killed, according to Reuters. 

 The leader, head of the Union’s West Cairo branch, Mohamed Abdallah, is suspected by the agency to have been an informer. 

 Suspicions began when there was an incident between Regeni and Abdallah. The latter had asked Regeni to buy him a telephone and airplane tickets, and is suspected to have talked to the police after the researcher rebuffed him.

 Abdallah was also worried about Regeni’s proposed training workshop for his syndicate, since it would require foreign assets.

 "You know how we feel about foreign funding here in Egypt," Abdallah told Reuters.

 Upon the discovery of the PhD student's body, Abdallah was questioned extensively by Egyptian authorities: "They asked me the same questions that everybody has been asking me since this all happened. When and where I have met him."

 "I didn't meet him in any hidden place. It was all done in the market."

 One source from the Homeland security told Reuters: "I am not sure if he was cooperating with security or not. But he was being monitored for sure."

 The interest shown in Regeni by the union was nevertheless clear at a meeting on Dec. 11 which Regeni attended, where a man had stood up and taken his photo. 

 One leader of the union said the interest aroused by the academic came from the fact that "he was looking into workers' unions, not actors or footballers. And as you know, workers are what is needed for any mobilization.”

 Regeni was known to have had a heartfelt interest in the world of Egyptian workers' unions, and particularly the world of street vending. In an email to Reuters, his family wrote: “We know he took the difficulty of these people’s lives to heart, and hoped that things would improve for them.”

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