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Italy presses Egypt to help find who killed Italian student Italy presses Egypt to help find who killed student
(about 4 hours later)
ROME — Italy’s foreign minister is pressing Egypt to help find who killed an Italian student whose beaten, tortured body was found last week, nine days after he disappeared in Cairo. ROME — Italy kept pressure on Egypt Monday to cooperate in finding who tortured and murdered an Italian student doing research in Cairo, insisting it wouldn’t accept convenient answers in the case.
Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, in an interview published Monday in La Repubblica daily, said: “We won’t settle for presumed truths.” He says Rome insists that Giulio Regeni’s killers are identified and “punished according to law.” “We won’t settle for purported truths, as we have said on the occasion of the two arrests initially linked to the death of Giulio Regeni,” Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni insisted in an interview published in La Repubblica newspaper.
Separately, an Italian Justice Ministry undersecretary, Gennaro Migliore said Regeni’s “massacre is a very grave stain on a fundamentally authoritarian regime.” “We want those who are really responsible to be found out, and be punished on the basis of law,” the minister said.
Gentiloni called Cairo a strategic partner, acknowledging its “fundamental” role in stabilizing a region where Islamic State group is making gains in Libya, Egypt’s neighbor. Italian media have honed in on the hypothesis that elements in Egypt’s security force, which have been criticized by human rights champions, had arrested the young man before his death because he was in contact with Egyptian labor activists as part of his research.
But Gentiloni insisted Italy defends its citizens’ rights and ensures that justice is done when they are victims of crimes. But Egypt’s interior minister retorted that his country’s investigators are working hard to solve the case and insisted Regeni had never been arrested.
Asked at a Cairo news conference if Regeni had been detained, Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar replied: “It didn’t happen. We stressed that to many officials. We stress it once again.”
Asked if Regeni was a spy, the Egyptian minister replied: “Not at all. We are dealing with a crime committed against a foreign national.”
Gentiloni’s remarks about “purported truths” referred to statements last week by some Egyptian authorities — later denied — that two suspects had been picked up for questioning in the case.
An Italian Justice Ministry undersecretary, Gennaro Migliore, had even sharper words for Egypt’s authorities Monday as gruesome details emerged about the 28-year-old student’s brutal end.
Regeni’s “massacre is a very grave stain on a fundamentally authoritarian regime,” Migliore said.
The Cambridge University doctorate candidate had been living in Cairo for a few months, doing research into Egyptian labor movements and other social issues.
Regeni vanished on the evening of Jan. 25, as he traveled by subway after telling friends he was going to a birthday party. That date coincided with the anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian uprising. Egyptian security forces were out in force, intent on quashing any signs of protest.
Rights groups have accused Egyptian police of regularly torturing detainees, and in the past year, of detaining suspected activists or Islamists without ever reporting their arrests.
Egyptian authorities informed Italian authorities on Feb. 3 that Regeni’s body had been found along a highway on Cairo’s outskirts. At first, Egyptian officials blamed the death on a road accident.
The Egyptian interior minister, Abdel-Ghaffar, told reporters on Monday that the body had been found by commuters whose vehicle had broken down.
After an initial autopsy performed by Egyptian authorities in Cairo, a second was performed Saturday in Rome after the body was flown from Egypt. The Italian autopsy found that Regeni had suffered extensive bruises and many fractures, and died after a neck vertebra was broken, perhaps by a heavy blow or a violent twisting of the head.
La Repubblica on Monday reported that the nails on all his toes and fingers had been ripped off, and that all his fingers had been broken.
Laboratory results of tissue and fluid samples are a key to understanding how much time elapsed between Regeni’s death and the discovery of his body. Those answers won’t be known for days.
Gentiloni described Egypt as a strategic partner, with a “fundamental” role in stabilizing the region. But he insisted Italy defends its citizens’ rights and ensures that justice is done when they are victims of crimes.
Italy needs Egypt to help in keeping northern Africa out of the hands of the Islamic State group, which has made steady gains in neighboring Libya. Italy, along with the United States, has been urging Libya’s rival governments to unite, to reduce the chaos gripping the oil-and-gas rich country since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed in 2011.
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Maggie Michael contributed from Cairo.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.