Giulio Regeni murder: Egypt rejects naming of its agents as suspects
Egypt has rejected the
addition of members of its security services to an Italian list of suspects in
the murder of the student Giulio Regeni, in a statement that spelled his name
incorrectly. “Egyptian law does not
recognise what is called ‘the record of suspects’,” the state information
service (SIS) said, citing an anonymous member of the judiciary. The statement
was titled “Julio [sic] Regeni’s case: charges should be based on evidence and
not suspicions.”
Regeni’s mutilated
corpse was found on a desert road outside Cairo nine days after he disappeared,
on 25 January 2016. His parents could identify him only from “the tip of his
nose”, his
mother has said. There have been longstanding suspicions – denied by Egypt
– that Egyptian authorities were responsible for his death.
After a meeting on 28
November between Rome’s deputy public prosecutor and his Egyptian counterparts,
Italy added
several members of Egypt’s national security agency (NSA) to a list of
preliminary suspects last week. Italian investigators
had previously expressed
suspicions that Regeni was followed by agents from the NSA, who also
deployed Ahmed Abdullah, the head of the street vendors’ union, to surveil and
film Regeni while he researched trade unions in Egypt, a politically sensitive
subject.
The Italian paper
Corriere della Serra outlined
last week how Italian intelligence researched Regeni’s movements in
his final days. In its statement
released on Sunday night, the SIS cast doubt on the quality of the Italian
investigation and whether it was possible to list the suspects under the
Italian legal system. Paz Zarate, a friend
of Regeni, tweeted:
“Egypt not only continues to lie but also to show disrespect by not writing his
name right. It’s easy to spell, so this must be a deliberate gesture to
indicate where the investigation is going: nowhere.”
ROME—In a murder case
shrouded in secrecy and steeped in sometimes outrageous conspiracy theories,
one thing remains clear: Italian Ph.D. candidate Giulio Regeni died
a slow and excruciating death.
