Sisi wants Regeni killer, Cmtt No.2 (3)

(ANSA) - Cairo, January 30 - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wants to find the people who tortured and murdered Italian researcher Giulio Regeni last year, the deputy head of the Egyptian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Tarek El Khouly, said Monday. "I think there is an order from the Egyptian political leaders, from the president in person, to the general prosecutor to discover who killed Regeni, whoever that may be," El Khouly told ANSA. "I think that, in any part of the world, mistakes are made by security apparatus. Perhaps it is a crime concerning an Egyptian security apparatus, perhaps not," said El Khouly, adding that the Regeni case had been politically "exploited" in both Egypt and Italy and urging a "separation" between Italy-Egypt ties and the case.
    Regeni, 28, 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.
    Egypt has denied speculation its security forces, who are frequently accused of brutally repressing opposition, were involved in the death of the Cambridge doctoral student.
    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.
    It recently emerge that the head of the Egyptian street sellers' trade union secretly filmed Regeni for the Cairo police in December 2015. The official, Mohammed Abdallah, said he had agreed to do his patriotic duty because Regeni was a "spy".