Italy tells Egypt it expects truth about death of student

ROME // Italy warned yesterday that it was prepared to take “immediate and proportional measures” against Egypt if the country fails to come clean with all it knows about the torture and death of an Italian graduate student in Cairo.

The warning came a day before a delegation of Egyptian prosecutors and security officers was to fly to Rome to present their findings on Giulio Regeni’s murder.

Italy’s foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said that meetings between Italian and Egyptian prosectors could be decisive to filling in gaps in the investigation into Regeni’s death.

The 28- year- old researcher was abducted from a Cairo street on January 25, when po- lice were out in force on the fifth anniversary of the uprising that dismissed autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Speculation rose that Egypt’s security forces were involved after Regeni’s tortured body was found nine days later.

Mr Gentiloni repeated Italian criticism that Egyptian authorities had not provided full information to date, saying Italian prosecutors in particular wanted missing documents concerning Regeni’s mobile phone use and CCTV footage of the Cairo area from where he is believed to have been snatched.

“If there isn’t a change, the government is ready to react by adopting immediate and proportional measures,” Mr Gentiloni said.

He said Italy wanted the truth, not convenient excuses.

Mr Gentiloni did not specify possible measures, but Regeni’s parents have urged Italy to declare Egypt an “unsafe” country for Italian tourists.

In Cairo, foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said Mr Gentiloni’s comments “complicate matters further”, given that they were made a day before the arrival in Rome of an Egyptian team of prosecutors and police officers. The team is visiting Italy to share the results of the Egyptian investigation.

Weeks after Regeni’s body was found, Egyptian authorities linked the killing to a criminal gang, saying they found the student’s personal belongings in a suspect’s home after a shoot-out that killed all the gang members.