ROME - An Egyptian man has testified to witnessing in prison the torture of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher who was allegedly detained, attacked and murdered by four Egyptian secret agents in 2016. 

 The unnamed man, who spoke during the ongoing trial of the secret agents, told of how he was arrested on the same day as Regeni, and heard the Italian being tortured with electric shock in a nearby cell.

 The body of Regeni was found on the side of a road on Feb. 3 2016, near a secret service prison between Alexandria and Cairo. The Cambridge PhD student was on a research trip, and his body was found with significant evidence of torture, including some letters of the alphabet engraved on his skin. 

 During the trial, the witness tearfully recalled the events of those days in 2016, when he too was arrested over a song he published on YouTube. 

 'I heard when Giulio Regeni was being tortured, he was groaning and speaking in Arabic. I remember seeing him for the first time at the Dokki police station... He was asking to speak with a lawyer and with the Embassy'. 

 When they were taken to the secret service prison, the witness was separated from Regeni, but he remains traumatised by what he heard through the walls. 

 'I never saw him again, but I could hear him being beaten because we were in nearby rooms... They tied our hands, beat us, chained us to the bed with handcuffs, and then used electric shocks'. 

 The witness also described the fear he experiences daily over what could still happen to himself or his family. 

 Alessandra Ballerini, the lawyer representing Regeni's parents, expressed the significance of this testimony as a step towards bringing some justice for her clients' child. 

 'This is a very important testimony', she said in the trial, 'an eyewitness who was with Giulio in two places of detention'. 

 The Egyptian government continues to deny any involvement with Regeni and his death.

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