The official spokesman of Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Bassam Radi, told ANSA after
Premier Giorgia Meloni stressed to Sisi Italy's strong focus on
respecting human rights in the abduction, torture and murder of
Italian student Giulio Regeni that "the meeting touched on the
question of Italian student Regeni and cooperation to reach the
truth and obtain justice".
Italy has "strong attention" for the cases of Regeni, an Italian
doctoral student abducted, tortured and murdered in Cairo in
early 2016, and of Patrick Zaki, an Egyptian student at Bologna
University who has been charged with subversion in Egypt since
February 2020, Meloni told Sisi on the sidelines of the CoP27
meeting in Egypt Monday, the premier's office said.
It was the first visit to Egypt by an Italian premier since
Regeni's murder, which has strained bilateral ties amid a Rome
prosecution request to hand over four Egyptian intelligence
officers suspected of torturing the 28-year-old Friuli-born
Cambridge University researcher to death because they thought he
was spying on Cairo due to his work with street unions.
The bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Sharm el Sheikh
summit on climate change, the premier's office said, gave Meloni
an "opportunity to raise the issue of respect for human rights
and to underline Italy's strong attention on the cases of Giulio
Regeni and Patrick Zaki," who is accused of spreading fake news
and calling for unauthorised protests.
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.
The four Egyptian officials are National Security General Tariq
Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim
and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif Regeni,
a Cambridge University doctoral researcher, was tortured to
death while in Egypt to work on research into Cairo street
hawkers' unions. A fresh hearing in the case has been set for
February 13 in Rome.
Zaki, who spent 18 months in police custody, is also set to face
a fresh hearing in Cairo soon.
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