Rome prosecutors are expecting "concrete results" from Cairo counterparts in the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni that may lay the groundwork for a future meeting between the prosecutors, judicial sources said Wednesday.
In particular, the Rome prosecutors are expecting answers to
a request filed in April last year to question five members of
Egypt's security apparatus they have identified as involved in
the torture and murder of the 28-year-old Cambridge University
research student in early 2016.
The Rome prosecutors were speaking after a meeting in Cairo.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Premier Giuseppe
Conte in Cairo Tuesday that Egypt wants to get to the truth
about Regeni's torture and murder in the Egyptian capital.
He said Cairo "confirms its full support for the current
cooperation between the authorities involved in Egypt and Italy
to uncover the circumstances of the case".
Regeni, 28, a Cambridge University doctoral researcher
working on street unions, was found dead in a ditch on the
motorway to Alexandria on February 3, 2016.
He was last seen alive on the Cairo metro on January 25, the
highly policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted
former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
At various stages, Egypt has put out several explanations for
his death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff turned
ugly and a kidnapping for ransom in which the alleged gang,
criminals but presumably innocent of the Regeni murder, were
later wiped out.
Judicial cooperation between Rome and Cairo prosecutors dried
up after the Roman prosecutors placed the five members of the
security apparatus under investigation.
It has since tentatively resumed.
Last month Rome prosecutors Sergio Colaiocco and Michele
Prestipino said that Regeni was caught by a "spider's web" spun
by the Egyptian security services.
"A spider's web was spun around Giulio Regeni by the Egyptian
National Security Service in October (2015) before the
kidnapping and murder," Colaiocco and Prestipino told a
parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Friuli-born
student's death.
"A spider's web in which the (security) apparatus used the
people who were closest to Giulio in Cairo, including his lawyer
flat mate, the street traders union representative and Noura
Whaby, his friend who helped him with translations".
"It was a spider's web that closed in more and more and which
Giulio ended up in the middle of".
Sisi has denied any official involvement in Regeni's death.
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