Optimism that Egypt may start helping
Italy to find the murderers of Italian student Giulio Regeni
does not mean that everything in bilateral relations is OK,
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said after being accused of
spurring false hopes by saying his talks with President Abdel
Fattah e-Sisi had been positive on the student tortured to death
in Cairo in early 2016.
Tajani said after meeting Sisi in the Egyptian capital Sunday
that he had been "reassured on the case of Regeni, for whose
murder Rome prosecutors are seeking four Egyptian intelligence
officers.
Regeni's parents dismissed this optimism in an interview with
Rome daily la Repubblica Monday saying that Cairo's
collaboration in notifying the officers of their indictment, and
thus allowing a trial in absentia to proceed, had been and
continued to be "non-existent".
The four officers are National Security General Tariq Sabir and
his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim
and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
The Italian justice ministry said last month that it has had no
response from Egypt over its calls for cooperation in the case
of the four Egyptian intelligence officers suspected of Regeni's
abduction, torture and murder.
The trial against the four has been suspended after a Rome
court ruled that it could not go ahead because the defendants
had not been notified of its existence.
Italy has been trying to notify the four officers of their
indictments in order to proceed with their trial in absentia but
the efforts ran into a brick wall last year after Cairo refused
to help locate them.
Regeni, a Cambridge University doctoral researcher, was tortured
to death while in Egypt to work on research into Cairo street
hawkers' unions. His mother only recognised his body by the tip
of his nose.
A fresh hearing in the case has been set for February 13 in
Rome.
Tajani said Monday that Sisi had shown a new willingness to
collaborate on the case.
In Egypt "we raised the issue of Regeni because we need to know
and to hit those who murdered this boy. I put the problem to the
President of the Egyptian Republic and to the Foreign Minister,
and the President was the first to raise the issue by saying
that he will do everything to remove the obstacles that have
made relations between Italy and his country difficult. I want
to be optimistic, but that does not mean that everything is OK.
We will continue to monitor but it seems to me that I have seen
a new and different willingness compared to the past", Tajani
said on Radio 24.
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