Rome prosecutors told their Egyptian
counterparts Monday night they were ready to warp up their probe
into the 2016 abduction, torture and murder in Cairo of Italian
student Giulio Regeni and were set to charge five members of
Egypt's security apparatus.
The Rome prosecutors said they had the necessary proof and
witness statements against the five secret service members
accused of abducting Regeni on January 25, 2016.
"We will ask to try them within a few days," they told their
Cairo counterparts on a videolink.
Egyptian prosecutors said they did not agree with their Roman
colleagues led by Michele Prestipino.
Egypt's prosecutor general, Hamada al Sawi, said "there is
insufficient evidence to prove the charges".
Regeni's parents, Paola and Claudio, said they "noted the
umpteenth fruitless meeting between the two prosecutor's
offices".
They said "the paths of the two sets of prosecutors have never
been so divided.
"In these years we have suffered wounds and outrages of all
kinds from the Egyptian side, they have abducted, tortured and
killed our son, they have thrown mud and discredit on him, they
have lied, insulted and deceived not only us but the whole
country".
Witnesses have told the Rome prosecutors that Regeni was picked
up by members of the Egyptian security services.
The witnesses, deemed reliable by the prosecutors, say the
28-year-old Cambridge doctoral researcher was abducted by agents
of the Egyptian National Security Agency on January 25, 2016,
the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that
ousted former strongman Hosni Mubarak, and taken to at least
two barracks in the subsequent hours.
The young man from Friuli was seen in a barracks near the Dokki
metro stop, where he was previously last seen, the witnesses
said, and later at another barracks where young foreigners are
usually taken.
Rome prosecutors told their Cairo counterparts about these
witness statements, but the Egyptian magistrates rejected the
statements as allegedly unreliable.
Regeni was found dead in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria
highway on February 3 2016, a week after disappearing on the
Cairo metro. He had been tortured so badly that his mother said
she only recognised him by the tip of his nose.
At various times Egypt has advanced differing explanations for
his death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff and
abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was
wiped out after Regeni's documents were planted in their lair.
The student was researching Cairo street sellers unions for the
British university, a politically sensitive subject.
The head of the street hawkers union had fingered Regeni as a
spy.
Rome recently drew condemnation from Regeni's parents by
announcing the sale of two frigates to Egypt.
Premier Giuseppe Conte said the deal was on a separate level
from cooperation on the Regeni case.
Ex-premier Matteo Renzi, who was in office when Regeni died, has
called for Italy to send a special envoy to Egypt to urge the
Sisi regime to enable the trial of the five secret service
members.
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