Egyptian investigation team to fly to Rome to resume collaboration in Regeni case

The Egyptian and Italian investigation teams will hold a meeting in Rome on September 8 and 9 to discuss the formal inquiry into the torture and murder of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

The meeting marks the resumption of discussion between the Egyptian and Italian teams who have not directly cooperated with one another in the last five months amid significant tension. Italian officials told ANSA that Rome’s prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone, who is the head of the Italian investigation, called for the meeting.

Egyptian General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek is expected to take part in the meeting, which is the third meeting held between the investigators of the countries. The first meeting was held in Cairo on March 14, and the second, in Rome on April 7.

The body of the 28-year-old Italian researcher was found outside of Cairo in February, a week after he had disappeared on the night of the fifth anniversary of the January 25 Revolution. The autopsy conducted in Rome showed signs of severe torture that had extended for days and determined that the cause of death had been broken cervical vertebra.

The Italian government recalled its ambassador to Cairo in April to protest what they alleged to be the intransigence of the Egyptian investigation. In June, the Italian senate voted to suspend the export of spare parts for F-16 warplanes to pressure Egyptian authorities to hold more transparent investigations into the case.

In March, the Ministry of Interior announced that security forces had killed five people in a raid who it alleged were members of a criminal group that was responsible for Regeni’s death. However, Italian authorities stated that there was no evidence to tie the purported suspects to Regeni’s death, and that they were unlikely to be responsible for the torture to which he had been subjected.

After initially declining, Egyptian authorities agreed to turn over the phone records of a number of citizens who had been near the locations where Regeni disappeared and where his body later resurfaced. The Italian authorities considered this to be a positive development.