Witness says saw Regeni blindfolded, exhausted by torture

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 19 - A Palestinian former prisoner in the same Cairo secret police facility as Giulio Regeni said in a video shown at the Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian intelligence officers accused of torturing to death the Italian student that he had "seen Giulio blindfolded and exhausted by the torture.
    "Giulio Regeni was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, blindfolded," said the former detainee in a video of a documentary broadcast by Al Jazeera, and shown in the courtroom Tuesday.
    "I saw him again as he was leaving the interrogation, exhausted by torture. He was between two jailers who were carrying him on their shoulders. They were taking him back to the cells".
    Regeni, 28, a Cambridge university doctoral researcher into Cairo street unions, was allegedly tortured to death between February 25 and February 3 2016 after Egyptian security officers decided he was a spy.
    National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are on trial in absentia in Rome after Egypt refused to notify them of the proceedings.
    Regeni was tortured so badly that his mother Paola Deffendi said she could only recognise him "from the tip of his nose".
    Deffendi said "all the evil in the world" was visited on her son's body.
    The Palestinian witness added in the documentary: "He wasn't naked, he was wearing clothes, dark pants and a white T-shirt. I saw another prisoner with signs of torture on his back.
    "The jailers insisted a lot with the question 'Giulio, where did you learn to overcome the techniques to face the interrogation'.
    "They were nervous, they used electric shocks and tortured him with electricity." In addition to the jailers, the witness also said in court, "there were investigators, officers I had not seen before and a colonel, a doctor specialized in psychology.
    "There was no contact with the outside world: the feeling was that of being in a tomb. I was kidnapped, detained and then released without a reason." Amnesty International has said that Regeni is one of thousands of political prisoners that are allegedly 'disappeared' in Egypt every year.
    Regeni's body, according to an Italian autopsy, showed major signs of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades made with a hard and hot object; a brain haemorrhage; and a broken cervical vertebra, which ultimately caused death. (ANSA).