(supersedes previous)Italian
investigators probing the torture and murder of Italian student
Giulio Regeni in Cairo said Friday the case is far from closed.
"The case is not at all closed," they said after the
Egyptian interior ministry issued a statement saying it has
recovered Regeni's passport and evidence that he was kidnapped
by an Egyptian criminal gang, whose members were killed in a
police shootout on Thursday.
"There is no definitive element confirming they were
responsible," the Italian investigators said, adding Egypt has
yet to pass on crucial investigation data to Italy.
They also pointed to inconsistencies in Egypt's latest
version of what happened to Regeni.
First, kidnappers would be unlikely to hold on to
compromising evidence such as a victim's passport for months
after the victim's death.
Second, kidnappers would be unlikely to torture a victim
over the course of a week - as Regeni was - if their only
purpose was to obtain a ransom.
Third, it is not credible that an entire gang of alleged
kidnappers was killed by police, thereby preventing any
possibility of getting corroborating statements from any of
them.
"We must continue digging and following our leads to find
definitive evidence and eliminate doubt," Italian investigative
sources said.
Their comments came after the Egyptian interior ministry
said in a statement that Regeni's passport was found in the home
of the sister of one of the alleged gang members, who was killed
by security forces along with fellow suspects in a shootout with
police on Thursday.
The Cambridge doctoral researcher's severely burned and
mutilated body was found in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on
February 3, nine days after he disappeared on January 25, the
heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted
former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
The alleged criminal gang would dress up as cops to kidnap
foreigners, the ministry said. Police searched the home of the
sister of the suspected ringleader, named as Rasha Saad Abdel
Fatah, 34, because "investigations uncovered evidence he went to
see her from time to time", the ministry said. She lives in the
Nile Delta north of Cairo, it said.
"Security forces have finished their investigation and
apprised the Italian side of the results," the ministry said.
"We thank the Italian side for its full cooperation...
(which) contributed to this result," Egyptian news agency MENA
cited the ministry as saying on Thursday. Also on Thursday,
Adjunct Interior Minister Abu Bakr Abdelkarim said "We cannot
say whether or not (the gang) is responsible for Regeni's death
- the case is still under investigation".
On Friday, Senate foreign committee chair Pier Ferdinando
Casini said the Egyptian statement left him "very perplexed".
"We are waiting to get more detailed information from Egyptian
authorities," Casini said.
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