Rome prosecutors said Thursday they
had completed their probe into the 2016 abduction, torture and
murder in Cairo of Italian student Giulio Regeni and were ready
to file charges against four out of five Egyptian intelligence
service members involved in the case.
The prosecutors sent notification of the closure of the probe to
the four while they asked for possible charges to be shelved
against the fifth.
Completion of a probe in Italy normally precedes a request to
indict.
Possible charges are, variously, multi-aggravated abduction of a
person, complicity in aggravated murder and complicity in
grievous bodily harm.
The four who risk trial are General Tariq Sabir, Athar Kamel
Mohamed Ibrahim, Uhsam Helmi, and Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
The latter is accused of grievous bodily harm and murdering
Cambridge doctoral researcher Regeni.
Sharif would have been faced possible torture charges if the
case had taken place after that crime was introduced into
Italian criminal law, in July 2017.
The shelving of the case against Mahmoud Najem, the fifth spy,
was requested due to insufficient evidence to support the case
against him.
The communication of the end of the probe was made to
court-appointed Italian lawyers, since the Egyptian security
service members have not stood as possible suspects in the case.
The lawyers and their clients now have 20 days to present
evidence for their defence and eventual requests to be
interviewed by investigators.
Rome prosecutors told their Egyptian counterparts November 30
they were ready to wrap up the probe
and were set to charge members of Egypt's security apparatus.
The Rome prosecutors said they had the necessary proof and
witness statements against the secret service members accused of
abducting Regeni in January 2016.
Egyptian prosecutors said they did not agree with their Roman
colleagues, who are led by Michele Prestipino.
Egypt's prosecutor general, Hamada al Sawi, said "there is
insufficient evidence to prove the charges".
Regeni's parents, Paola and Claudio, said they "noted the
umpteenth fruitless meeting between the two prosecutor's
offices".
They said "the paths of the two sets of prosecutors have never
been so divided.
"In these years we have suffered wounds and outrages of all
kinds from the Egyptian side, they have abducted, tortured and
killed our son, they have thrown mud and discredit on him, they
have lied, insulted and deceived not only us but the whole
country".
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, where he was previously last seen, the witnesses
said, and later at another barracks where young foreigners are
usually taken.
Rome prosecutors told their Cairo counterparts about these
witness statements, but the Egyptian magistrates rejected the
statements as allegedly unreliable.
Regeni was found dead in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria
highway on February 3, 2016, a week after disappearing on the
Cairo metro. 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
spy.
Rome recently drew condemnation from Regeni's parents by
announcing the sale of two frigates to Egypt.
Premier Giuseppe Conte said the deal was on a separate level
from cooperation on the Regeni case.
Ex-premier Matteo Renzi, who was in office when Regeni died, has
called for Italy to send a special envoy to Egypt to urge the
Sisi regime to enable the trial of the secret service members.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has repeatedly promised
to help Italy get to the truth about the murder.
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