Italian ambassador returns to Cairo after one-year withdrawal

CAIRO – 14 August 2017: Italy has decided to return its ambassador, Giampaolo Cantini, to Cairo a year after he had been summoned, Reuters reported on Monday. The Italian ambassador was withdrawn in August 2016 due to the mysterious murder and torture of student Julio Regeni.

Some Italian newspapers cited the incident of the Egyptian engineer who was killed by the Italian tourist in Marsa Alam Red Sea resort town as one of the reasons behind the decision to return Italy's ambassador to Egypt.

Samia Sami, head of the Central Administration of Internal Bureaus of the Ministry of Tourism, said that she received a report from the Hurghada bureau saying that an Egyptian engineer had a fight with an Italian tourist named Evan Pascal Moro, who was standing with his two daughters (6 years old and 15 years old) at a construction site of a hotel in Marsa Alam.

The victim asked the assailant to stay away from the construction site, but the tourist verbally and physically assaulted the Egyptian to death.

The police arrested the Italian tourist on a murder charge, to be held for four days in prison, pending the outcome of a forensic investigation.

On the other hand, Emad Fathy, the Egyptian tourism consultant in Italy, said that he notified the Italian Consul in Hurghada, Alberto Pratini, of the incident and ordered a special babysitter to accompany the two children until they are returned to Italy.