Giulio Regeni, the Italian doctoral
student tortured to death in Cairo between January and February
2016, spoke of "very much political repression" in Egypt shortly
before his abduction and said he was glad to be returning to
Cambridge that spring, a friend told a Rome trial of four
Egyptian intelligence officers Tuesday.
"The last time we spoke, on 16 January 2016 via chat, he told me
that there was a lot of political repression in Egypt and he was
happy to return to Cambridge in the spring", the female friend
told the trial in absentia of National Security General Tariq
Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim
and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
The friend, a prosecution witness, then recounted a meeting she
had with Regeni at Christmas 2015.
"We saw each other, he told me about his research in Cairo, that
he was spending a lot of time with street vendors, that he kept
a very low profile, that he was very tired," she said.
Regeni, 28, is believed to have been killed due to the
politically sensitive nature of his research for the British
university, into independent street vendor trade unions.
One of the union chiefs reportedly fingered him as spy.
He was tortured to death between January 25 and February 3 2016.
Regeni, from a small town near Udine in northeastern Italy, 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.
His body, according to an Italian autopsy, showed 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.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, with whom Premier
Giorgia Meloni recently negotiated a deal for funding in return
for stopping migrants leaving for Italy, has repeatedly issued
vain promises to cooperate in the case.
The four officers are on trial even though it has proved
impossible, due to Egyptian lack of cooperation, to inform them
of the proceedings.
photo: Regeni's parents Claudio Regeni and Paola Deffendi in
court
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