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Clear signs of torture on Regeni's body envoy tells trial

He had fractures and cuts over whole body says Massari

Redazione Ansa

(ANSA) - ROME, APR 16 - There were "clear" signs of torture on the body of Giulio Regeni, the Italian student tortured to death in Egypt in January-February 2016, former Italian ambassador to Cairo Maurizio Massari told a Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian intelligence officers Tuesday.
    "I personally went to the morgue where Giuli'0s body was being held," Massari told the trial of National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
    "There were clear signs of torture, of blows received over all the body with bruises and signs of fractures and cuts." Cambridge University doctoral researcher into independent Egyptian trade unions Regeni, 28, from a small town near Udine in northeastern Italy, was tortured so badly that his mother Paola Deffendi said she could only recognise him "from the tip of his nose".
    Deffendi said "all the evil in the world" was visited on her son's body.
    His body, according to an Italian autopsy, showed signs of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades made with a hard and hot object; a brain haemorrhage; and a broken cervical vertebra, which ultimately caused death.
    The four officers are on trial even though it has proved impossible, due to Egyptian lack of cooperation, to inform them of the proceedings.
    Regeni, 28, is believed to have been killed due to the politically sensitive nature of his research for the British university, into independent street vendor trade unions.
    One of the union chiefs reportedly fingered him as spy.
    He was tortured to death between January 25 and February 3 2016.
    (ANSA).
   

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