Giulio Regeni's hometown of
Fiumicello in Friuli on Tuesday remembered the 28-year-old
Cambridge doctoral researcher on the sixth anniversary of his
last sighting on the Cairo metro before being tortured to death
as a suspected spy in the Egyptian capital and his barely
recognizable body turning up on the motorway to Alexandria a
week later.
"It is right that this school park be named after Giulio but we
are asking for more, for yellow benches to be set up (across
Italy)", said his mother Paola Deffendi, who recognised her son
only by the tip of his nose after his torture allegedly by
Egyptian security officers.
Yellow is the colour that his parents have chosen to remember
their son, and it is the background for all appeals to bring the
culprits to justice.
Students and others on Tuesday read out their poems and writings
about the case, which started with the discovery of the
student's body on February 3, 2016, after his disappearance on
January 25 of that year.
Premier Mario Draghi and Justice Minister Marta Cartabia had a
video-conference meeting on Monday with Deffendi and Regeni's
father Claudio.
After the meeting the premier's office said "possible
initiatives" were discussed on how to follow up on a petition to
the government to intervene in the case from
a Rome preliminary hearings judge (GUP).
Earlier this month the GUP called on the government intervene to
enable the case to move forward against four Egyptian National
Security Agency (NSA) officers over the torture and murder of
Regeni, who was researching the politically sensitive issue of
Cairo street hawker unions.
In October the Court of Assizes in Rome had ruled the trial in
absentia of the four Egyptian security officers could not
proceed until there was proof the defendants had formally
received notice of being on trial, sending the case back to the
GUP.
The GUP then 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.
"We want concrete action on this," Regeni's parents said
Tuesday.
Regeni was abducted, tortured and killed by Egypt's security
apparatus, a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the early
2016 incident said in its final report on December 1.
The responsibility for Regeni's death lies with the four
Egyptian National Security Agency (NSA) officers, whose proxy
trial in Rome stalled due to the inability to inform them they
are being tried, said the commission.
The commission said Rome prosecutors had "minutely
reconstructed" how the officers abducted, tortured and killed
Regeni.
It said that Egypt should now be called to "face up to its
responsibility" in the case.
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".
The commission added that the discovery of Regeni's body had
"not been accidental" and that the student's Cambridge
supervisor, Professor Maha Abdelrahman, was not at fault in the
case.
Regeni was found dead in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway
on February 3, 2016, a week after disappearing.
He had been fingered as a spy by the head of Cairo street
sellers' unions.
The Regenis have appealed to the EU for help in finding the
truth about their son's slaying and have condemned continued
Italian arms sales to Egypt including two frigates.
The case may collapse entirely if the four officers are not
located, judicial sources said after the October 14 ruling.
The judge said it could not be "presumed" that the four knew
about the proceedings because of the heavy media
coverage of the case, as a previous judge had ruled.
It said the four had to be "effectively" informed of the case
against them.
The October 14 ruling was a blow to the closely watched first
international judicial examination of Egypt's controversial
national security policy which has brought widespread
condemnation from human rights groups.
Alessandra Ballerini, the Regeni family lawyer, told the court
on October 14 that fifteen of Regeni's bones were fractured and
five of his teeth smashed, while numbers had been carved into
his skin.
National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates,
Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major
Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, were on trial at the third Court
of Assizes in Rome.
In an important signal, the Italian premier's office decided to
stand as a civil plaintiff in the case, along with Regeni's
parents, who were in court with Regeni's sister Irene.
Rome prosecutors say that Regeni was tortured for days,
resulting in "acute physical suffering" by being subjected to
kicks, punches, beaten with sticks and bats and cut with sharp
objects, and also being burned with red-hot objects and slammed
into walls.
His neck was then snapped in a fatal blow.
Egypt's prosecutor general, Hamada al Sawi, has said "there is
insufficient evidence to prove the charges".
At various times Egypt has advanced differing explanations for
Regeni's death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff and
abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was
wiped out after Regeni's documents were planted in their lair.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome's
temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo for a spell.
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