The case of Giulio Regeni, an
Italian student tortured and murdered in Cairo earlier this
year, is "an open wound" for Italy, Foreign Minister Paolo
Gentiloni said Wednesday.
Gentiloni said "we got some signs of hope from Egyptian
judicial authorities in September which Rome prosecutors
interpreted as a willingness to collaborate," but "we are not
satisfied, and it's no accident that we withdrew our ambassador
in Egypt and we have not yet sent one back to Cairo".
Earlier this month Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
said Italy was falsely charging Egyptian security forces in the
Regeni case because it is heeding "groundless" Egyptian media
reports.
"I say to those who hold dear the interests of Egypt, don't
hurt our interests. Italy, in accusing the Egyptian security
services of killing Giulio Regeni, relied on groundless
information published by Egyptian media. The same thing happened
on the Russian air disaster (in Sinai)," Sisi said.
The Cambridge graduate student, 28, born in the town of
Fiumicello in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region around Trieste,
went missing on the night of January 25, the heavily policed
fifth anniversary of the uprising that toppled former
strongman Hosni Mubarak.
His burned, mutilated, and partially unclothed body turned
up in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on February 3.
Rights groups including Amnesty International have said he
is among hundreds of people who have disappeared in Egypt over
the past year.
Cairo has repeatedly denied the allegations that elements
of the Egyptian state were behind the murder, offering a series
of explanations ranging from a car crash, to a gay lovers'
quarrel gone wrong, to a kidnap for ransom.
Italy has rejected these versions and is pressing to get at
the truth, withholding its new ambassador from taking up his
post in Cairo.
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