Regeni suspect took part in death probe

(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 2 - One of the four Egyptian intelligence officers on trial in absentia in Rome in the January-February 2016 torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni took part in the joint Egyptian-Italian initial investigations into the Cambridge University doctoral researcher's death, witnesses told the trial Thursday.
    In the inspection carried out on 10 February 2016 on the site where Regeni's half-naked and mutilated body was found in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway on February 3, an inspection carried out by the two investigation teams, one Egyptian and the other Italian, one of the defendants in the trial in Rome, intelligence officer Colonel Uhsam Helmi, was also present, said a witness belonging to the ROS and SCO special branch police units.
    National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are on trial on suspicion of torturing to death the 28-year-oild Friuli-born Regeni from January 25 to February 3 that year because they thought he was a spy due to his politically sensitive work on independent Cairo street seller unions.
    Regeni was tortured by being brutally beaten including with sticks and suffering burns, the prosecution's medical consultant told the trial last week.
    He suffered punches, kicks, burns, beating on the soles of the feet and painful handcuffing of his wrists and ankles, among other things, said coroner and prosecution consultant Vittorio Finceschi, who carried out the autopsy on the body.
    On February 6 2016 the forensic expert examined the body of the researcher, who 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 four officers are on trial even though it has proved impossible, due to Egyptian lack of cooperation, to inform them of the proceedings.
    Regeni is believed to have been killed due to the nature of his research for Girton College at the British university, into independent street vendor trade unions.
    One of the union chiefs reportedly fingered him as spy.
    His body, according to Finceschi's 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.
    photo: Regeni's parents Claudio Regeni and Paola Deffendi at Thursday's hearing (ANSA).