The government will brief the
House and Senate foreign affairs committees at 14:00 on
September 4 on the government's decision to send ambassador
Giampaolo Cantini to Cairo after cited progress in cooperation
over the torture and murder of student Giulio Regeni, committee
heads said Thursday.
The briefing will focus on bilateral ties and the situation
in the Mediterranean, they said.
The announcement came a day after the government denied a New
York Times report that the US gave "explosive" proof that
Egypt's secret services tortured and murdered Regeni to the
former government of Matteo Renzi.
In its report, the NYT said the administration of former
United States president Barack Obama gave the Renzi government
proof last year that graduate student Regeni was abducted,
tortured and killed by Egypt's security services, who had been
surveilling him for some time because of his research into
street vendor trade unions.
The office of Premier Paolo Gentiloni denied the report while
Cairo welcomed the return of Cantini.
The Obama administration gave no "explosive evidence" or real
actionable information to the Renzi government that Regeni was
tortured and murdered by the Egyptian secret services,
Gentiloni's office said Tuesday after the NYT report.
The NYT said the US, under Obama, acquired evidence that
Regeni was abducted, tortured and killed by the Egyptian secret
services in early 2016 and informed the Renzi government.
But the premier's office said no solid evidence was provided,
"as was recognised by the (NYT) journalist himself", and Egypt
had offered ever increasing cooperation with Rome, spurring
Italy to send ambassador Cantini to Cairo Monday after Rome
withdrew its ambassador in April 2016 in protest at lack of
cooperation.
Regeni's family said it was "indignant" at the posting of the
ambassador and posted a photo of an Italian flag at half mast,
saying it was "doubly in grief" at their son's death.
Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano responded by stressing that
Cantini will be tasked with seeking the truth about Regeni, a
Cambridge university researcher who disappeared on January 25,
2016, the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the popular
ousting of former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
His mutilated body was found in a ditch on the road to
Alexandria nine days later.
Egypt gave several explanations for his death including a car
accident, a gay lovers' tiff turned ugly and murder by an
alleged kidnapping gang, later wiped out by police - all of them
rejected by Italy.
But on Monday Cairo supplied allegedly key fresh testimony by
the police who probed Regeni before and after his death,
prompting Rome to send Cantini to Cairo.
Egypt on Wednesday welcomed the return of the Italian
ambassador to Cairo after the cited progress in the Regeni case,
saying it now hoped Italian tourists would follow in Cantini's
wake.
"Now we hope for the return of Italian tourism", said foreign
ministry spokesman Ahmed Abou Zeid.
He said Italian-Egyptian relations were "special and historic
in various aspects, economic, cultural, and also in the
political field".
Cantini, 60, was handpicked by Renzi and then foreign
minister Gentiloni in May last year to replace Maurizio Massari,
the ambassador who was the first to see Regeni's disfigured
body.
In his report for the NYT , Declan Walsh said that in the
weeks after Regeni's death, the United States acquired
"explosive intelligence from Egypt: proof that Egyptian security
officials had abducted, tortured and killed Regeni."
"We had incontrovertible evidence of official Egyptian
responsibility," an Obama administration official - one of three
former officials who confirmed the intelligence - told me.
"There was no doubt."
Walsh, the NYT's Cairo bureau chief, went on:
At the recommendation of the State Department and the White
House, the United States passed this conclusion to the Renzi
government.
But to avoid identifying the source, the Americans did not
share the raw intelligence, nor did they say which security
agency they believed was behind Regeni's death.
"It was not clear who gave the order to abduct and,
presumably, kill him," another former official said.
What the Americans knew for certain, they told the Italians,
was that Egypt's leadership was fully aware of the circumstances
around Regeni's death.
"We had no doubt that this was known by the very top," said
the other official. "I don't know if they had responsibility.
But they knew. They knew."
Regeni's body showed signs of torture including broken foot
and wrist bones, a clipped ear and cigarette burns all over his
body, as well as a missing front tooth.
His torturers killed him by breaking his neck.
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