Murder of Giulio Regeni

Giulio Regeni (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒuːljo reˈdʒɛːni]; 15 January 1988[1] – 25 January 2016) was an Italian Cambridge University graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt.[3][4] Regeni was a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge,[5] researching Egypt's independent trade unions,[6] as well as a former employee of the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica.[7] He grew up in Fiumicello, a former comune (now Fiumicello Villa Vicentina) in the province of Udine in Northeastern Italy.[8] Contents 1 Discovery of the body 2 Investigations 3 Accusations against the Egyptian government 4 Reactions of the international community 5 See also 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 Filmography 9 External links Discovery of the body Regeni's mutilated and half-naked corpse was found in a ditch alongside the Cairo-Alexandria highway on the outskirts of Cairo on February 3, 2016. His recovered body showed signs of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades made with a hard and hot object; a brain hemorrhage; and a broken Cervical vertebrae, which ultimately caused death.[9][10] Investigations Italian and Egyptian officials conducted separate autopsies on Regeni's corpse with an Egyptian forensic official reporting on March 1, 2016, that he was interrogated and tortured for up to seven days at intervals of 10–14 hours before he was finally killed.[11] The Egyptian autopsy findings have still not been made public. A 300-page report of the Italian autopsy findings has been handed over to the public prosecutor's office in Rome and denies earlier reports of signs of electric shocks administered to Regeni's genitals.[12] On March 24, 2016, Egyptian police killed in a shoot out four men who were allegedly responsible for kidnapping Regeni.[13] According to a Facebook post from the official page of the Ministry of the Interior,[14] the gang specialized in kidnapping foreigners and stealing their money. In a raid on the flat of one of the gang members, the Egyptian police claim they found various items that belonged to Regeni including his passport and student photo IDs. However, witnesses told Declan Walsh and other journalists that the "gang" members had been executed, not shot while riding in the van: "One was shot as he ran, his corpse later positioned inside the van". Their link to Regeni was also suspect: "Italian investigators used phone records to show that the supposed gang leader, Tarek Abdel Fattah, was 60 miles north of Cairo the day he supposedly kidnapped Regeni", according to Declan Walsh.[15] The New Cairo prosecutor's office later denied that the criminal gang was involved in his murder.[16] Regeni's passport and the other documents were handed over to Italian prosecutors on November 1, same year, during a "positive" meeting in Cairo.[17] On June 8, 2016, Italian news agency ANSA reported that Regeni's tutors at Cambridge University had declined to collaborate with the inquest into his murder, to the disappointment of investigators and Regeni's family.[18] This had been anticipated by coverage in the Italian weekly L'Espresso on June 7, 2016, which reported that Regeni's tutor Maha Abdelrahman had followed advice from University lawyers not to collaborate with the inquest.[19] The University of Cambridge strongly rejected the claims in a statement released to Varsity, the Cambridge student newspaper.[20] Despite commitment on behalf of Cambridge University, as of early December 2017, British authorities had denied requests by the Italian prosecutors concerning the interrogation of specific individuals in Britain; on a similar note, Abdelrahman had refused to speak to the Italian prosecutor.[21] Such British inaction in the aftermath of the incident would be later described by Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner as "lack of tenacity".[22] Following the controversy that played out in the media,[23] Abdelrahman eventually accepted to be questioned by Italian authorities and received praises from the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs for having chosen to cooperate.[24]

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