Rome court sets date for ruling in the in-absentia trial of four Egyptian national security officials charged over the abduction and torture-killing of Cambridge researcher Giulio Regeni in Cairo.
A verdict has finally been scheduled in the Rome trial of four Egyptian national security officials accused of abducting and torturing to death Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo. The court announced on Tuesday that the ruling will come on September 28.
Regeni, a 28-year-old doctoral researcher at Cambridge University who was studying Cairo’s street unions, disappeared on the Cairo metro on 25th January 2016. His half-naked body, bearing extensive signs of torture, was found in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway on 3rd February 2016, nine days later.
Four defendants tried in absentia
Prosecutors allege Regeni was abducted and tortured to death by National Security General Tariq Sabir and three subordinates: Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Usham Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif. None of the four has attended a single hearing of the trial, after Egypt refused to notify them of the proceedings.
Prosecutors have asked for a life sentence for Major Sharif on charges of aggravated murder, and terms of 17 and a half years each for the other three defendants on charges of aggravated kidnapping.
“Cold, methodical, organised violence”
In his closing arguments, Rome Deputy Chief Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco described the treatment inflicted on Regeni as cold, methodical, organised violence against a defenceless man.
The scale of that violence was such that Regeni’s mother, Paola Deffendi, was only able to recognise him by the tip of his nose. Her description of what had been done to his body — that “all the evil in the world” had been visited upon it — later gave its title to a documentary made to mark the tenth anniversary of the murder. The film itself became the subject of controversy after it was denied national-interest funding.
Pressure on Rome to act
With a verdict scheduled, attention is turning to what Italy will do if the four defendants are convicted. The centre-left opposition has urged Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government to seek their extradition from Egypt should that happen. There has been long-standing frustration over Rome’s handling of relations with Cairo in the years since Regeni’s death.
