Regeni was not a spy says former intelligence chief

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 24 - The former head of Italian intelligence agency AISE said Thursday that Giulio Regeni was not a spy for Italy or Britain during a hearing of the Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian security officials charged with torturing the student to death in January-February 2016.
    "Giulio Regeni was not an agent of the Italian secret services," former Aise director Alberto Manenti told the court.
    "No one within the structure knew him and I also asked the British services, MI6, if he was an asset of theirs and they told me he wasn't.
    "I think it's true".
    Regeni, 28, was an Italian Cambridge university doctoral researching Egyptian street seller unions in Cairo.
    National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are on trial for his murder.
    Regeni suffered various forms of torture in Cairo, including punches, kicks, burns, beating on the soles of the feet and painful handcuffing of his wrists and ankles, coroner and prosecution consultant Vittorio Finceschi told the trial in April.
    Egypt has banned four key prosecution witnesses from answering a summons to the Rome trial.
    They include trade unionist Said Abdallah, who allegedly fingered Regeni as a spy.
    Manenti told the hearing that the Italian authorities were "faced with a rubber wall on the part of the Egyptians," after Regeni went missing. (ANSA).