Relations with Egypt cannot be untied: Italy’s Minister of Interior

CAIRO – 10 August 2018: Egyptian-Italian relations cannot be untied and Italian authorities are waiting for the latest development on the case of killing Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Egypt, said Italy's Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini in an interview with Al-Jazeera channel on Friday.

“There is a fundamental relationship with Egypt,” he said, adding that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Egyptian Minister of Interior Mahmoud Tawfiq assured him the killers of Regeni will be identified in the framework of ongoing investigations. “I trust what they [Sisi and Tawfiq] say,” he said.
He added that the metro cameras’ footage, which Rome received from Cairo in May to investigate where and when Regeni disappeared, needs more investigations due to the presence of blanks in the video footage.

On July 18, Salvini held a meeting with Sisi and Tawfiq, Head of General Intelligence, Mr. Abbas Kamel, and Italy's Ambassador in Cairo.

“The president stressed the strong will and desire to reach a conclusion in the investigation of the Italian student Giulio Regeni's case, and the detection of the perpetrators to achieve justice,” President Sisi said during the meeting.

Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Roberto Fico will visit Egypt in September at the Egyptian House of Representatives’ speaker Ali Abdel Aal’s invitation.

Egypt and Italy have been aiming to improve relations post Regeni incident when an Italian student was murdered in 2016. Back then, Sisi had promised Italy’s interior minister and deputy prime minister that he would bring justice to those involved in the student’s death.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Enzo Milanesi has paid Egypt a three-day visit last week. Milanesi discussed counter-terrorism, bilateral relations and Regeni’s death.

Additional reporting by Dania Akkawi