Italian Prosecutors Investigate Student’s Mysterious Death in Egypt

Italy Will Not Let it Go

Italian prosecutors formally put four high-ranking members of Egypt’s security forces under investigation on Thursday over the alleged 2016 kidnapping, torture and killing of Italian doctoral research student Giulio Regeni — whose body was found on a highway in Cairo.

Sergio Colaiocco, a prosecutor in Rome, Italy, told a session of a special parliamentary commission on the slaying of Giulio Regeni.

"As we said, the notice for the conclusion of the investigations is referred to four officers belonging to Egyptian security forces. The names are known and were published by the press. They are all included in the general category of the Egyptian security forces."

An Italian judge will review the evidence and decide on whether to indict and order a trial for any or all of the suspects as Italy allows trials of defendants in absentia.

In late November, Egyptian prosecutors slammed the Italian investigators pushing to try in their push to bring five police and intelligence officers to trial.

Another prosecutor in Rome, Michele Prestipino Giarritta, addressed the same commission.

"Against only one of the five suspects, we have already filed a request for dismissal of the charges against him, because we considered that the evidence gathered against this suspect was not sufficient to usefully prosecute him. Therefore: four notices of the conclusion of the investigations, three for kidnapping, one for kidnapping and conspiring to commit aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder."

The case strained relations between Italy and Egypt, an ally it needs in the crackdown on migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean and efforts to combat terrorism.