An Italian court has convicted three Egyptian security officials for their involvement in the kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, who was later found dead. The men were sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping on Monday, while a fourth defendant was acquitted. They were tried in absentia and are unlikely to face extradition given the strained relations between Italy and Egypt as a result of the case.
Regeni, a postgraduate student at the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge, disappeared in the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His body was later found on the side of a road with broken teeth, cigarette burns and broken bones. A post-mortem determined he had been tortured.
Human rights activists said his injuries were similar to those found on people who have been tortured in Egyptian security agency facilities. Egypt has denied any involvement in his death. The four men, Major Magdi Sharif, from General Intelligence; police Colonel Hisham Helmy; Colonel Ather Kamal, a former head of investigations in Cairo; and former head of state security Major General Tarek Sabir, who was acquitted, have never responded to the accusations against them.
The judge dismissed the accusation of “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder” levelled against Sharif on Monday. Egyptian and Italian prosecutors initially investigated the case together. However, Egypt then said that members of a criminal gang were responsible for the murder and had been killed in a police shootout.
It has subsequently maintained that Regeni’s killers are unknown. Italian prosecutors said that Egyptian security officials kidnapped and tortured Regeni because of his academic research into trade unions. He had been researching union activities among street vendors in Cairo at the time he disappeared.
They accused Egypt of undermining their investigation and refusing to disclose the men’s whereabouts. Italian legislation allows for the prosecution of crimes committed abroad against Italian citizens. However, an earlier trial of the four men was suspended in 2021 after the judge questioned its legitimacy, given that the accused may not have known whether they had been charged.
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