Egypt hands over fresh Regeni material

(ANSA) - Rome, May 9 - Egyptian magistrates on Sunday gave Italian investigators probing the Cairo torture and murder of student Giulio Regeni more phone records and written testimony, judicial sources said Monday.
    The Italians went to Cairo for a fresh summit that marked a renewal of contact after an April summit in Rome ended in failure. Regeni disappeared on January 25, the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that toppled former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
    Italy has complained of a lack of cooperation from Cairo in getting to the bottom of the case after Regeni's mutilated body was found in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on February 3.
    Egypt has proffered several unlikely versions of his death that included a car crash, a gay lovers' quarrel, and a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong.
    Italy has yet to send its ambassador - recalled after the failure of the Rome summit - back to Cairo.
    In the last few days Egyptian magistrates sent phone records of five Egyptian citizens including that of Mohamed Abdallah, leader of the informal traders' union.
    Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge doctoral student researching Egyptian trade unions, attended a meeting organised by the union on December 14.
    It was not to be ruled out, sources said, that the other phone records handed over Sunday were those of a further eight people whose records Italy had asked for via an international diplomatic request.
    The documents handed over to Italian prosecutors and police are all in Arabic.
    The Italian investigators are set to get back to Rome later Monday and on Tuesday will meet with assistant Rome prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco to brief him on what happened in Cairo during their three-day visit. Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said: "I'm waiting for an assessment from the prosecutor's office. I am certain that the prosecutor will issue an evaluation as soon as possible.
    "The fact that contacts have resumed is a positive per se, but we have to see what's inside (the files)".