A Rome judge on Monday requested the
government intervene to enable the case to move forward against
four Egyptian National Security Agency (NSA) officers over the
abduction, torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni
in 2016.
In October the Court of Assizes in Rome ruled the trial in
absentia of the four Egyptian security could not proceed until
there was proof the defendants had formally received notice of
being on trial, sending the case back to a preliminary hearings
judge (GUP).
On Monday the GUP transmitted the case documents to the
government to verify if anything had come from warrants sent to
the Egyptian authorities in April 2019 and to see if there was
any room for dialogue with Cairo on this matter.
The judge said a hearing would take place on April 11 to assess
the results of Monday's request.
Regeni was found dead in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway
on February 3, 2016, a week after disappearing.
The 28-year-old from Friuli had been tortured so badly that his
mother said she only recognised him by the tip of his nose.
He had been fingered as a spy by the head of Cairo street
sellers' unions, the politically sensitive issue that was the
subject of his doctoral research for Cambridge University.
Last month a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Regeni
case said blame for the researcher's death lies with the four
NSA officers and said that Egypt should now be called to "face
up to its responsibility".
It said "if it is good that (prosecutors) are insisting despite
the ever clearer Egyptian boycott (of the investigation and
trial), at a political level it is time to remind Egypt of its
responsibilities, as a State, which are very clear.
"The time has come for a decisive step to be taken with the
Egyptian government in order to remove the obstacle hindering
the probe".
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