Italy investigating five Egyptian security officials in Cambridge student’s torture and killing

Five security officials are under investigation for the alleged kidnapping, torture and murder of a Cambridge student.

Prosecutors in Rome have formally opened an investigation into five Egyptian secret service members and police investigators in connection with the alleged 2016 torture and murder of an Italian researcher.

The five were being investigating on possible abduction charges related to the January 2016 murder of Giulio Regeni, 28, who was allegedly abducted and tortured for several days before his body was left on a highway north of Cairo.

Mr Regeni was a Cambridge University student, undertaking research in Cairo for his doctorate, when he went missing on January 25, 2016. His body was found on February 3.

Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco said the suspects are believed to have been active participants in Mr Regeni’s abduction.

Cambridge student Giulio Regeni was murdered and his body found dumped on the outskirts of Cairo.

The launch of the investigation was likely to raise tensions with Egypt, which has already bristled at moves by Italy’s Lower House to cut off parliamentary relations over the case. There was no immediate reaction from Cairo, but Egyptian prosecutors have reportedly rejected an Italian request to treat as suspects several police officers involved in the surveillance of Mr Regeni for his work studying trade unions.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini called Egypt a “friendly country,” saying he wanted to maintain “good economic, cultural, commercial and social relations” but that “we have been waiting three years”.

The five Egyptian officials under investigation in Italy are a now-retired major-general and a major at the domestic security agency, two police colonels and a warrant police officer, according to security officials in Cairo. At least one of the officials has been reassigned to a more remote district.

Giulio Regeni had been doing research for his doctorate in Cairo when he went missing in January 2016.

Police Major-General Tareq Saber was a top official at the domestic security agency at the time of Mr Regeni’s abduction and killing. He retired in 2017. Police Major Sherif Magdy served at the same agency, and was in charge of the team that placed Mr Regini under surveillance.

The police officials were Colonel Hesham Helmy, who served at the time of the abduction in a province where Mr Regeni lived; Colonel Acer Kamal, who was head of a police department in charge of street works and discipline; and warrant police officer Mahmoud Nejm.

Mr Regeni, a Cambridge University graduate student who was researching trade unions in Egypt, disappeared in Cairo on January 25, 2016 — the fifth anniversary of Egypt’s popular uprising when thousands of police deployed across Cairo to pre-empt any attempt to mark the occasion.

His body was found several days later by the side of a highway near Cairo with torture marks that activists and rights groups say resembled the results of widespread torture practices in Egyptian detention facilities.

The family of Giulio Regeni follow his coffin during the funeral service in Fiumicello, Northern Italy. Picture: AP/Paolo Giovannini

Italy has been pushing Cairo for years to identify and prosecute those responsible for torturing and killing Mr Regeni but has increased pressure as the third anniversary of his death approaches. The Foreign Ministry last week formally summoned the Egyptian ambassador to Rome to prompt Cairo to “act rapidly” on the case, following a recent meeting between Egyptian and Italian prosecutors.

Giulio Regeni’s father Claudio, sister Irene and mother Paola.