4 Egyptian officials sent to trial for 2016 kidnap, murder of Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni

Four Egyptian officials will be tried in absentia in Italy for the 2016 murder of Giulio Regeni, after an Italian judge gave the green light on Tuesday. 

The four members of Egypt’s security and intelligence agencies, who have not responded to Italian indictment orders, will stand trial on charges related to the disappearance, torture and murder of the Italian graduate student. 

The trial is to begin on October 14, after the judge decided on Tuesday that evidence presented at the pretrial hearing on the case was sufficient to warrant proceeding with a trial. 

The four Egyptian officials have been charged with the "aggravated kidnapping" of Regeni, whereas only one of the four, Major Magdy Sharif, who served at the National Security Agency in 2016, where he was in charge of the team that placed Regini under surveillance, was indicted for "conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.” 

Initially, Rome prosecutors were pursuing five officials, yet the formal indictments were only made against four. 

The judge’s decision to move forward with the trial also comes despite Egyptian authorities' refusal to give Italian prosecutors the addresses of the suspects so that Italian authorities can deliver a notice of indictment, a technical prerequisite before suspects can stand trial per Italian law. According to Italian judicial sources who spoke to Reuters on Tuesday, Egypt still has not provided Italy with the addresses of the suspects.

Though the trial began as a joint Italian-Egyptian judicial investigation, Rome and Cairo took divergent paths at the end of 2020, after more than one accusation from the Italian side regarding Egypt’s “intransigence.”

Egypt’s Public Prosecution announced in late November that it would be temporarily closing investigations into Regeni’s murder, saying that “the perpetrator of the murder of the Italian student is still unknown.” “While the Egyptian prosecution appreciates the Italian legal proceedings, it expresses its full reservations about these suspicions and does not support them, since it views them not to be based on solid evidence,” a Public Prosecution statement read at the time, adding that the Egyptian prosecution “understands the independent decisions” Rome prosecutors are planning to take. 

An Egyptian government source who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity at the time said to Mada Masr that both countries share an understanding that “Italy is doing what they want to do and Cairo is doing what we want to do.” The source added that the two countries will remain friendly but that this marks the end of any official Egyptian involvement in the Regeni case and that Cairo will neither continue to investigate further nor provide any additional information.

Regeni, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University who was researching independent trade unions in Egypt, disappeared from a metro station on January 25, 2016 — the fifth anniversary of the 2011 revolution — while on his way to meet a friend in downtown Cairo. His body was found on February 3 on the side of a highway on the outskirts of the city, bearing marks of severe torture.