Members of an Egyptian gang that abducted foreigners to rob them and were killed in Cairo by security forces were "linked to the murder" of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, the site of Egyptian daily El Watan said Thursday citing a security source. "At the time of the arrest there was a shootout with police that led to the death of five members of the band," the source was quoted as saying in a statement in line with the version of the shooting given by the Egyptian interior ministry.
The site of the authoritative pro-government daily Al-Ahram, however, played down the possible link to the Regeni case, while not ruling it out completely. "A security source has denied information published on websites linking the death of Italian academic Giulio Regeni to the band specialised in kidnapping and robbing foreigners in New Cairo," Al-Ahram reported.
"The source said that the security services continue to do their job to get to the bottom of the murder of the Italian and the crimes committed by this band and (establish) if there is a relationship between them". The Cambridge doctoral researcher's 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. Several accounts by Egyptian officials of Regeni's death have been greeted with incredulity in Italy and Premier Matteo Renzi's government has said that it will not accept a "convenient truth" from Cairo.
A Giza prosecutor, for example, recently raised eyebrows when he played down reports of torture and said that Regeni was killed the day before his body was found on February 3 after being subjected to one single bout of violence.
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