The family of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher tortured and murdered in Cairo earlier this year, said Tuesday that they were "anxious" over the arrest in Egypt of a consultant who was helping their legal team. The family named the arrested person as "Ahmed Abdallah, president of the board of Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom (ECRF), a NGO that was providing consultancy work for our lawyers". Italy will not tire of calling for truth on the case of Giulio Regeni, the young Italian researcher who was tortured and killed in Cairo three months ago in circumstances that remain unclear, Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini has said.
"We will never tire of asking for the truth. A democracy does not compromise," she said during celebrations to mark Liberation Day in Italy on Monday.
Italy has complained of a lack of cooperation from Cairo in getting to the bottom of the case after Regeni's mutilated body was found in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on February 3.
Meanwhile in the Egyptian capital a journalist who interviewed the relatives of the criminal gang allegedly found to be in possession of Regeni's documents was among numerous people detained following anti-government protests coinciding with the anniversary of the end of the Israeli occupation of the Sinai peninsula on Monday. Basma Mostafa was one of six local and six foreign journalists be to detained. Also on Monday, an Egyptian television presenter drew criticism after saying Regeni could 'go to hell'.
"What's all the fuss about?" asked Rania Yassin on the Saudi television channel Al Hadath Al Arabiya. "Is it the first time that someone has been killed? Initially we sympathised, a young person had been killed. But now you have pushed us into saying 'go to hell', we've had enough of this story!" Journalists in Cairo said Yassin's remarks were "out of place and not to be publicised". Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge doctoral student researching Egyptian trade unions, disappeared on January 25, the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that toppled former strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Italy recently recalled its ambassador to Egypt for consultations after the investigation into Regeni's death stalled, with Egypt proffering unlikely versions of his death that included a car crash, a gay lovers' quarrel, and a kidnapping for ransom gone wrong.
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