Body of Italian found in Cairo, Rome demands action

An Italian student who disappeared in Cairo last week has been found dead and appears to have been tortured, officials said Thursday, prompting furious demands from Rome for the speedy arrest of his killers.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi phoned Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to demand that Giulio Regeni’s body be immediately repatriated and Italian experts be given access to the investigation into his death.

“We have to find those responsible for this horrible crime and bring them to justice,” Renzi was quoted as telling Sisi.

Italy also summoned Cairo’s ambassador in Rome to express its “bewilderment over the tragic death” of Regeni, 28.

The Cambridge University doctoral student’s half-naked body was found in a roadside ditch on the outskirts of Cairo early Wednesday, public prosecutor Hossam Nassar told AFP. He had gone missing on Jan. 25 while on his way to meet a friend.

“This is a murder,” Nassar said.

Ahmed Negi, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said the body showed clear signs of violence.

“There are bruises and injuries on the body, especially on the face and back. The body was naked from the waist down,” Negi said.

“So far we are considering this to be a criminal act, but we are waiting for the forensic report and the police investigation to be complete.”

An initial prosecution report seen by an AFP reporter said that the injuries included apparent cigarette-burn marks near the eyes and on the feet. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Italy needed to be involved in the investigation “because we want the truth to come out, every last bit of it.”

“We owe that much to a family that has been stricken in an irreparable way and, at the very least, has the right to know the truth.”

The Foreign Ministry said the Egyptian ambassador had given assurances that the Egyptian authorities would do their utmost to find those responsible for what he termed a “criminal act.”

In reaction to the news, Italy’s Economic Development Minister Federica Guidi, who was in Cairo when Regeni’s body was discovered, canceled the final day of a trade mission involving some 60 Italian companies.

Hours earlier, she had urged Sisi to personally intervene in the investigation into Regeni’s disappearance, underlining the potential for the case to disrupt normally close ties between Rome and Cairo.

Renzi was the first Western leader to receive former army chief Sisi after his 2013 overthrow of Islamist predecessor Mohammad Morsi.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri met Gentiloni in London and the two “agreed to increase cooperation and coordination ... to determine the cause of the death,” Shoukri’s office said in a statement.

Regeni was in Cairo doing research for his doctoral thesis on trade unions in Egypt and was last seen when he left his home with the intention of traveling by metro to meet a friend in the city center.

Cairo was almost deserted on Jan. 25, as Egyptian authorities had clamped down across the capital on what was the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring uprising that ended longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year reign.
Source :AFP