Egypt’s attorney general assigns Regeni’s case to new probe team

CAIRO – 16 January 2020: Egypt’s Attorney General Hamada El-Sawy on Wednesday announced forming a new investigation team in the case of the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo four years ago.

Regeni, a 28-year old doctoral researcher, disappeared early in 2016 in the Egyptian capital; he was found dead in February of the same year, with his body bearing signs of torture. The perpetrators of the crime have not yet been brought to justice despite judicial cooperation between Egypt and Italy.

As Sawy met with a number of Italian investigators, he affirmed continuing judicial cooperation between the general prosecution offices of both countries, with the aim of finding the truth behind the murder of Regeni with “objectivity and complete transparency, away from the false information disseminated by media about the case.”

On the sidelines of the 74th Session of the UNGA meetings in New York, in September, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, where they discussed bilateral relations, issues of mutual concern, and the death of Regeni, according to a statement from Egyptian Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Radi.

The two leaders tackled cooperation on investigations of the Regeni case, in light of continued efforts to unravel the circumstances of the case and to reach the perpetrators and bring them to justice, Radi said.

Also, in a meeting with Conte in June on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Japan’s Osaka, Sisi affirmed his country’s keenness to reveal the truth behind the murder of the Italian citizen, Radi said separately.

Regeni had been researching Egypt's independent labor unions for a doctorate at Britain's Cambridge University, according to Reuters.