The trial of four Egyptian intelligence officers accused of the kidnapping, torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016, began on Tuesday in a court in Rome.
Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University doctoral researcher into independent Egyptian trade unions, disappeared on the Cairo metro on January 25, 2016 and his mutilated, semi-naked body was found in a ditch on the road to Alexandria on February 3.
"It's a very important day," said Giulio Regeni's parents, Claudio and Paola, as they entered the court for the first hearing.
The four Egyptian security officers, National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, have been put on trial in absentia after Cairo long stonewalled the case and refused to give their addresses or contact numbers.
This caused a long delay, when ended in September when the Constitutional Court ruled that the trial could proceed even though the officers have not been formally notified of the proceedings against them.
Regeni's torture and murder sparked global outrage, with more than 4,600 academics signing a petition calling for an investigation into his death and into the many disappearances that take place in Egypt each month.
On January 25 Italy marked the eighth anniversary of Regeni's disappearance with events titled All The Chickens Come Home To Roost referring to the long-awaited Rome trial.
Regeni is believed to have been killed after a street seller union head fingered him as an alleged spy, and to the politically sensitive nature of his doctoral research for the British university
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