President Sergio Mattarella on Monday
demanded a response from Egypt over the torture and murder of
Giulio Regeni on the fifth anniversary of the Italian student's
disappearance in Cairo.
The Cambridge University research student's brutalized body was
found a week later.
Rome prosecutors have requested that four members of Egypt's
security services face trial in relation to the case.
"Among many difficulties, the work of the Rome prosecutors'
department has led to the conclusion of investigations that have
identified a picture of grave responsibility that will soon be
subject to a trial for the consequent punishment for the guilty
parties," wrote Mattarella in a statement.
"We expect a full and adequate response from the Egyptian
authorities, which have been relentlessly called on in this
regard by the Italian diplomatic services".
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told his his EU counterparts in
Brussels later Monday that Regeni's "barbaric murder is still an
open wound in Italy, but I am here today to talk with you
because that very same wound is inevitably also European".
"Let it be clear, Italy deems Egypt a crucial interlocutor in
the Mediterranean, and deems that our task in Europe is to start
a frank, constructive and transparent dialogue with Cairo, but
it cannot happen to the detriment of human rights".
A hearing before a preliminary hearings judge for the four
Egyptian intelligence service members has been set for April 29
in Rome.
Egypt has rejected the charges against the four and made it
clear it has no intention of handing them over.
General Tariq Sabir and three subordinates, Athar Kamel Mohamed
Ibrahim, Uhsam Helmi, and Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are
accused of crimes that range from aggravated involvement in
homicide to kidnapping and grevious bodily harm.
Rome prosecutors say that Regeni was tortured for days,
resulting in "acute physical suffering" by being subjected to
kicks, punches, beaten with sticks and bats and cut with sharp
objects, and also being burned with red-hot objects and slammed
into walls.
The suspects are set to be tried in absentia in Italy despite
Rome prosecutors' efforts to get them to attend.
Egypt's prosecutor general, Hamada al Sawi, has said "there is
insufficient evidence to prove the charges".
Witnesses have told the Rome prosecutors that Regeni was picked
up by members of the Egyptian security services.
The witnesses, deemed reliable by the prosecutors, say the
28-year-old Cambridge doctoral researcher was abducted by agents
of the Egyptian National Security Agency on January 25, 2016,
the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that
ousted former strongman Hosni Mubarak, and taken to at least two
barracks in the subsequent hours.
The young man from Friuli was seen in a barracks near the Dokki
metro stop in Cairo, the witnesses said, and later at another
barracks where young foreigners are usually taken.
Regeni was found dead in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway
on February 3, 2016, a week after disappearing.
He had been tortured so badly that his mother said she only
recognised him by the tip of his nose.
At various times Egypt has advanced differing explanations for
his death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff and
abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was
wiped out after Regeni's documents were planted in their lair.
The student was researching Cairo street sellers unions for the
British university, a politically sensitive subject.
The head of the street hawkers union had fingered Regeni as a
possible spy.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome's
temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo.
Rome recently drew condemnation from Regeni's parents by
announcing the sale of two frigates to Egypt.
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