Cairo prosecutors have sent
Italian prosecutors transcripts of fresh questioning of the
police who carried out a probe into Giulio Regeni's death,
sources said Monday.
Rome and Cairo chief prosecutors said the handing over of the
documents, which had been sought by Rome, was a "step forward"
in cooperation over the torture and murder of the 28-year-old
Cambridge University doctoral researcher.
Last month Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi stressed
to a delegation led by Senate defence committee chair Nicola
Latorre Egypt's "full commitment" to finding Regeni's killers
and underscored the "importance of continuing cooperation"
between Egyptian and Italian prosecutors on the case.
Sisi and the delegation discussed "means to reactivate
political relations between the two States", referring to the
current absence of an Italian ambassador in Cairo because of the
Regeni case.
The parties reviewed "developments" in the Regeni case and
Sisi reaffirmed the importance of continuing "close and
continuous" cooperation between Italian and Egyptian
investigators.
He underscored Egypt's "full commitment to work to uncover
the circumstances of this incident, and the truth, to catch its
authors and hand them over to justice".
Italy needs the truth on Regeni's murder, Latorrre told Sisi,
stressing the need for judicial cooperation to be stepped up
further.
"We conveyed an extremely clear message" to Sisi, Latorre
said, saying "Italy strongly feels the need for truth...on the
murder of one of our sons".
He said "this truth requires a significant impulse in the
activities of judicial cooperation".
Italian-Egyptian ties have been strained by the case of
Regeni, an Italian student tortured and murdered in Cairo early
in 2016.
Italy has yet to send an ambassador back to Cairo after
protesting delays in investigating the case.
It is also withholding spare parts for F-35 fighter jets.
Egypt has denied that its security apparatus, frequently
accused of repressing and disappearing opponents, had anything
to do with Cambridge University researcher Regeni's death.
Successive Italian governments have vowed to help Regeni's
parents get to the truth of the death of their son, who was
working on Egyptian trade unions.
Rome and Cairo prosecutors have been working together on the
case but Regeni's parents have accused the Egyptian side of not
cooperating fully.
Receiving the delegation led by ruling centre-left Democratic
Party (PD) Senator Latorre, el-Sisi said he wanted to relaunch
ties with Italy.
"Egypt aspires to develop its historical relations that tie
it to Italy and to relaunch them," MENA news agency said, citing
presidential spokesman Youssef.
Sisi also stated his "confidence in the capacity of relations
between the two countries to overcome the various challenges".
Sisi stressed the importance of boosting parliamentary visits
"to lend fresh impetus to the privileged ties of friendship
between the Egyptian and Italian peoples".
A month ago, on June 16, Egyptian authorities turned down a
request from Rome prosecutors to be present at the questioning
of Egyptian police officers who carried out investigations into
the Friuli-born researcher.
They said Egyptian law forbids the presence of foreign
magistrates during judicial activity.
Regeni's parents Claudio and Paola were informed of the
refusal during a meeting Friday with Rome chief prosecutor
Giuseppe Pignatone and his assistant Sergio Colaiocco.
Cairo prosecutors have, however, sent their Italian
counterparts a second report on testimony from the seven
policemen who probed Regeni, who disappeared on January 25 2016
and whose mutilated body was found on the road to Alexandria
eight days later. The testimony is a summary of what the
agents said and not
their testimony in full, judicial sources said.
Italian magistrates are hoping for a third tranche of
documents, starting with questioning of the national security
chief who investigated Regeni a few days before his
disappearance, as well as testimony given in March 2016 by the
agent who searched the home of the alleged head of a kidnapping
gang suspected of abducting and robbing foreigners.
Regeni went missing in the Egyptian capital on January
25, 2016, on the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the
uprising that ousted former strongman and president Hosni
Mubarak.
His severely tortured, mutilated body was found on February
3 in a ditch on the city's outskirts.
Egyptian and Italian prosecutors have been working on the
case but Rome has yet to send a new ambassador to Cairo in
protest at the lack of progress.
"Italy has mourned the killing of one of its studious young
people, Giulio Regeni, without full light being shed on this
tragic case for a year and despite the intense efforts of our
judiciary and our diplomacy," President Sergio Mattarella said
on the first anniversary of Regeni's disappearance.
"We call for broader and more effective cooperation so that
the culprits are brought to justice".
Premier Paolo Gentiloni expressed his support for Regeni's
family and said his government was determined to get to the
truth.
Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano echoed his words and said
that the young man's death "deprives all of us of a generous
heart that could have done a great deal for others".
The message on the foreign ministry website said that "the
tragic death of Giulio Regeni is still an open wound not only
for his family, who remain in our thoughts, but for our entire
country".
A video recently surfaced in which the head of the Cairo
street traders' union, Mohammed Abdallah, secretly filmed
Regeni asking him questions about the union using a police
shirt-button microcamera.
Abdallah said he was doing his patriotic duty because Regeni,
he said, was a spy.
Egypt has furnished several explanations for Regeni's death
ranging from a car accident to a gay fight to the kidnapping,
all of which have been dismissed by Italy.
Suspicion has fallen on seven members of the Egyptian police
and intelligence services who used Abdallah as an informant and
who later were responsible for wiping out the alleged kidnapping
gang.
Regeni's personal documents were allegedly found in the house
of the sister of one of the alleged gang's members.
There seem to have been signs of Egyptian cooperation on
Regeni's death thanks to the work of Rome prosecutors but
there is absolutely no evidence of true cooperation from
Egyptian authorities, Regeni's parents said recently.
Paola and Claudio Regeni urged that Italy's ambassador to
Cairo not return to Egypt, since this "would give a signal of
detente that must not be given", and stressed the importance of
not sending Egypt spare parts for F35 fighter jets until justice
has been served.
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