Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Edited by Nelly T.
Earlier this year Cambridge student Guilio Regeni was brutally murdered outside of Cairo. The 27 year-old disappeared on his way to meet a friend on the 25th January.
His body was found in a ditch on the 3rd of February horribly mutilated and showing signs of torture.
The Regeni family is now awaiting the arrival of the Egyptian authorities and prosecutors in Rome with the hopes that they will shed some light on the investigation into his death.
The Egyptian team had been set to arrive on Tuesday however they postponed their meeting with their Italian counterparts until later in the week. The date is not yet known.
This brutal murder has given a better understanding on Egypt’s human rights record.
The editor of state newspaper has spoken of “naïve stories” that have hurt Egypt’s reputation showing just how much criticism the Egyptian inquiry has come under.
Meanwhile in a Rome press conference Paola Deffendi, Guilio’s mother, voices her concerns about how reliable the Egyptian investigators are and what they “will come up with.”
Both of Guilio’s parents have criticized what the Egyptian team has said so far about the circumstances of his death. If the meeting in Rome does proceed it could be instrumental in evaluating if there has been any progress in the investigation.
Prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone is expecting evidence (phone taps, CCTV footage and forensic analysis) from the Egyptian authorities, which will help in the parallel investigation the Italian government s running.
Cairo investigators have suggested that Guilo Regeni was kidnapped and killed by a criminal gang possibly posing as Egyptian police.
Coincidently all five members of the suspected group were killed during a raid and some of Guilio’s items were recovered, including his passport. This version of events was quickly dismissed and scoffed at by the students’ family who are obstinate that Egyptian security forces are behind the murder.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has also derided this report saying that Italy would not settle for a “convenient truth.”
Guilio Regeni’s death has brought international attention to the crackdown on dissent by Egyptian authorities since many believe that the murder could be linked to his research into the role of unions in the post-Mubarak era for his PhD at Cambridge University.
So far Guilio’s family seem content with the amount of support the Italian government has shown them, however they have warned that they expect further action to be taken should the Egyptian officials fail them.
They have suggested they might make public a photograph of their son’s tortured body to put more pressure on the Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.
