Four senior Egyptian security officials will go on trial for the 2016 kidnapping, torture and murder of an Italian PhD student in Cairo.
ROME – Four senior Egyptian security officials accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing an Italian PhD student in Cairo in 2016 are on trial in a Rome court.
Tuesday’s hearing marks the second time the four Egyptians have been tried in absentia. In 2021, a judge in Rome halted a trial on opening day, claiming he was not sure whether the defendants had been formally informed that they had been charged with the death. Giulio Regeni’s.
Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled in September that the trial could proceed even though the four men had not been formally notified because Egyptian authorities had refused to provide their addresses.
Regeni’s body was found on a highway in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016, days after she disappeared. He had traveled to Cairo to study union activity among street vendors as part of his doctoral thesis.
His mother said his body was so mutilated by torture that only the tip of his nose was recognizable when she saw it. Human rights activists said the marks on his body were similar to those caused by extensive torture in Egyptian Security Service facilities.
The defendant is Sheriff Major Magdy. Police Maj. Gen. Tarek Saber was the top official in the internal security services at the time of Regeni’s abduction. Colonel Hesham Helmy worked at the security center responsible for security in the Cairo area where the Italians lived, and Colonel Eisel Kamal was the police chief in charge of street operations and discipline.
Egyptian authorities claim the Cambridge University PhD student was the victim of a civilian robbery.
The incident strained relations with Italy and Egypt, Rome’s allies in the fight against terrorism. At one point, Italy withdrew its ambassador and asked Egypt to cooperate with the investigation.