Regeni family disappointed by Cambridge teachers (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, June 8 - The family of Giulio Regeni, the Cambridge research student tortured and murdered in Egypt, on Wednesday voiced "sorrow and disappointment for the refusal of his Cambridge tutors" to answer Italian prosecutors' questions on the case. "We entrusted our son Giulio to the university community of Cambridge and we expected the utmost, concrete solidarity from this community, and therefore total collaboration in the search fror the truth on his kidnapping and terrible murder in Cairo while he was doing research work for the university," the family said in a statement. Paola and Claudia Regeni urged "all, without omerta', to sincerely and actively work to get at the truth on Giulio's barbaric murder, and to collaborate to this end with Rome prosecutors, in whom we place our utmost confidence". They said "those who believe in the rigour of research, the duty of solidarity, and the safeguard of human rights cannot shun the moral and civic duty to contribute to the investigations".
    Cambridge University teachers supervising Regeni declined to answer Italian prosecutors' questions on emails about his work on Egyptian trade unions, judicial sources said Tuesday.
    Regeni's supervisor Maha Abdelrahman and others availed themselves of the option of not answering questions from Rome assistant prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and security police, the sources said.
    Prosecutors had been hoping the emails might shed light on Regeni's contacts and work with the trade union movement, which some think may have been linked to his murder.
    Regeni, 28, went missing on the night of January 25, the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that toppled former strongman Hosni Mubarak, and his burned, mutilated, and partially unclothed body turned up in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on February 3.
    Egypt has repeatedly denied its security forces were behind the torture and murder of Regeni, a Cambridge doctoral student researching Egyptian trade unions.
    Egyptian authorities have offered up a series of unlikely explanations ranging from a car crash, to a gay lovers' quarrel gone wrong, to a kidnap for ransom that turned deadly.
    Italy has rejected all those versions.
    Human rights groups say Regeni is among some 500 people who have disappeared in Egypt over the last eight months.