Regeni witness says secret service asked for passport copy

(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - A witness in the Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian security officers for torturing to death Italian student Giulio Regeni in January-February 2016 told the court Tuesday that suspected members of the secret services asked a flatmate of Regeni's for a copy of the Cambridge doctoral researcher's passport just before Christmas 2015.
    'Witness Beta', a female German citizen who shared the flat with Regeni and an Egyptian friend, Mohamed El Sayed, told the court in a secure-mode testimony that the latter had told her "that one day in mid-December the police came to our house and asked for a copy of Giulio's document.
    "El Sayed was convinced that this check had been carried out by National Security, the Egyptian secret service.
    "I wasn't there but he had this idea and was scared by it".
    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-old Friuli-born Regeni from January 25 to February 3 that year because they thought he was a spy due to his politically sensitive research work on independent Cairo street seller unions.
    One of the Cairo street union chiefs reportedly fingered Regeni as spy.
    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 four officers are on trial even though it has proved impossible, due to Egyptian lack of cooperation, to inform them of the proceedings.
    His 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).