By Crispian Balmer and Marco Roberti
ROME, June 23 (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors on Tuesday sought a life sentence for one Egyptian security officer and long jail terms for three others accused over the kidnapping, torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016.
Regeni, a postgraduate student at Britain’s Cambridge University, disappeared in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016. His body was found almost a week later, with a post-mortem showing he had been extensively tortured before death.
Prosecutors asked the Rome court to sentence Major Magdi Sharif, from Egypt’s General Intelligence, to life in prison, and to hand prison terms of 17 years and six months to Major General Tarek Sabir, the former head of state security, police Colonel Hisham Helmy and Colonel Ather Kamal, a former head of investigations in Cairo.
The four Egyptians have never responded publicly to the accusations. They are being tried in absentia under an Italian law that allows for the prosecution of crimes committed abroad against Italian nationals.
Egypt has denied any state involvement, saying Regeni was killed by gangsters.
“What is being judged here is not the simple taking of a human life. What is being judged here is the methodical, cold, organised use of violence against a defenceless man,” deputy chief prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco told the court during his summing up.
“The dramatic truth is that this crime was not committed by criminals, but by men of the state, those to whom the state entrusts the legitimate use of force,” he said.
The court is not expected to deliver a verdict in the case until after the August recess.
AUTOPSY PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWN TO COURT
For the first time in the trial, and with the consent of Regeni’s family, prosecutors on Tuesday showed the court images from the autopsy. Colaiocco said the injuries proved Regeni had been tortured over several days while fully conscious.
“Giulio endured everything while conscious. Without sedation. Without drugs. Without any relief,” he said. “These were not beatings. This was a method of annihilation.”
The case has strained relations between Italy and Egypt for years. Italian and Egyptian prosecutors initially investigated Regeni’s death together but reached sharply different conclusions.
Italian prosecutors say Sharif, Sabir, Helmy and Kamal were responsible for Regeni’s aggravated kidnapping. Sharif is also accused of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, using a network of informants to follow Regeni before having him arrested at a Cairo metro station.
REGENI’S RESEARCH CAUGHT THE EYE OF POLICE, ITALY SAYS
The trial opened in 2021 but was suspended after court-appointed defence lawyers argued it would be void if there was no evidence that the defendants knew they had been charged.
Italy’s top court later ruled that Egypt’s failure to cooperate in locating the suspects should not prevent the trial from going ahead, and the case resumed in February 2024.
Colaiocco told the court on Tuesday that Egypt had deliberately shielded those responsible.
“The Egyptian regime did not want to investigate. It chose to protect the torturers,” he said. “It did not call its officers to account for the horrors committed. It consciously chose to cover for them.”
Regeni had been in Cairo researching Egypt’s independent trade unions for his doctoral thesis.
Associates have said he was also interested in the longstanding domination of Egypt’s economy by the state and military, both highly sensitive subjects in Egypt.
(Reporting by Crispian BalmerEditing by Keith Weir)
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