Cambridge student found dead in Egypt ‘was tortured’

THE body of a Cambridge University PhD student who went missing in Cairo last week bore signs of torture and “slow death”, according to officials.

Prosecutors said there were also signs of cigarette burns, beatings and cuts to the ears of Giulio Regeni, who was found half-naked in a ditch on the western road out of Cairo.

Mr Regeni, 28, from Italy’s northeast, was a member of Girton College and was attached to Cambridge University’s POLIS, the Department of Politics and International Studies. He disappeared in Cairo on Jan 25, at a time when the city was under tight security to prevent protests on the fifth anniversary of Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising.

Ahmed Nagi, an Egyptian prosecutor, disputed earlier reports that the student had been stabbed, saying it appeared to have been a “slow death”.

Italy’s foreign ministry summoned Egypt’s ambassador in Rome as the details of Mr Regini’s death emerged, demanding “the truth”. Officials in Cairo later said the meeting was called in a spirit of “friendship and cooperation”.

The incident has raised new questions over foreigners’ safety in Egypt. Five years after Mr Mubarak’s fall, government officials and mass media often depict foreigners as malevolent forces upon whom the country’s misfortune can be blamed. Attacks on visitors are not uncommon at times of heightened tensions.

General Khaled Shalaby, a senior police official, had insisted Mr Regini died in a car crash. Several high profile deaths in custody have been blamed on road accidents. There were also reports Mr Regeni might have died after a robbery that turned violent.

Mr Regeni had been living in Cairo since September, writing a thesis on labour movements while a visiting scholar at the American University.