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Egypt says Italian student was not arrested before his death Egypt investigator in Italy death convicted in past torture
(about 4 hours later)
CAIRO — Egypt on Monday denied reports that an Italian doctoral student doing research in Cairo was arrested shortly before his death and said an investigation into Giulio Regeni’s killing is continuing with full Italian collaboration. CAIRO — The Egyptian police officer leading the investigation into the torture and killing of an Italian student in Egypt was himself convicted in 2003 in the torture and strangling of a detainee, receiving a one-year suspended sentence, according to court records and lawyers involved in that case.
The outcome of the ongoing investigation would be made public once there is “solid information,” according to a statement by the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police and security agencies. Maj. Gen. Khaled Shalaby is the chief of the criminal investigation division in Giza, the district of the Egyptian capital where the Italian, Giulio Regeni, vanished on the evening of Jan. 25 as he headed to meet a friend in downtown Cairo. On that day, police were out on force to quash any sign of protests to mark the anniversary of the 2011 uprising.
“The expanded investigating team tasked with uncovering the circumstances of the killing of the young Italian man continues its work round the clock, in full collaboration with the Italian side,” the ministry said. Nine days later, Regeni’s body was found dumped on the outskirts of Cairo with marks of torture including cigarette burns, stab wounds and a broken neck.
However, Italy’s foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said Monday that Rome would evaluate the progress of Italian investigators in Cairo to verify that they have received the full cooperation Italy expects of its partner. Italian state TV has said Italian investigators were told by a witness that two men, apparently plainclothes police — stopped Regeni and escorted him away as he left his apartment. Egypt’s Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, has denied any police role in his death and on Monday it repeated denials that Regeni was ever arrested. It said its investigators are working “in full collaboration” with Italy.
“It is clear that we will not be satisfied with easy reconstructions and convenient truths,” he said. “It is also clear that the passage of time will not diminish our commitment to this question.” Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Monday that Rome would evaluate progress Cairo to verify that it has received full cooperation. “It is clear that we will not be satisfied with easy reconstructions and convenient truths,” he said.
Regeni, 28, was living in Cairo to research Egyptian labor movements for his doctorate from Britain’s Cambridge University. His body was found on the side of a road west of Cairo on Feb. 3, nine days after he disappeared. His funeral was held on Friday in his hometown of Fiumicello in northeastern Italy. Shalaby’s conviction and light sentence — and his consistent promotions ever since — underscore what Egyptian and international human rights groups have long said is the widespread use of torture by the security forces and the impunity they enjoy. In December, more than a dozen Egyptian rights groups issued a statement saying police appear to have “free rein to abuse citizens using ... torture, forced disappearances.” Still, cases of torture and death of Westerners by police are almost unheard of.
At the time, Italian state TV said Italian investigators have spoken to a witness who told them that two alleged plainclothes policemen stopped Regeni and escorted him away as he walked from his Cairo apartment to the subway station. The government and Interior Ministry deny torture is systematic, saying there have only been isolated cases.
Egyptian authorities initially blamed Regeni’s death on a road accident. A second autopsy, done in Italy, determined that he suffered a fatal fracture of a cervical vertebra, either from a strong blow to the neck or from forced twisting of the neck. When reached by The Associated Press and asked about the previous conviction and any impact on the current investigation, Shalaby replied, “I have no comment.”
There were multiple fractures in his hands, feet and elsewhere, and his face was heavily bruised, the autopsy found. Gamal Eid, a prominent rights lawyer, said Shalaby’s record raises questions about the “outcome of the investigation” into Regeni’s death.
Regeni disappeared on Jan. 25, the day Egypt marks the anniversary of the start of the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. This year, Egyptian police and security agents were out in force on Cairo’s streets, determined to quash any protests marking the occasion. Shalaby’s conviction goes back to a case in September 1999, when he was a police lieutenant colonel in the Montazah district of the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria.
Egypt’s handling of the Regeni’s death partially mirrors its protracted probe and handling of the Oct. 31 crash of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in which all 224 on board were killed. More than three months after the tragedy, Egypt is still investigating that incident and has only said that it’s premature to determine with any certainty the cause of the crash before a multinational investigation completes its work and publishes its findings. He and three other officers were accused of torturing to death Farid Shawqi Abdel-Al, a man they had detained on suspicion of breaking into and robbing a house, according to court documents obtained by the AP and two lawyers who represented Abdel-Al — Tarek Khater, who works for the Human Rights Center for Assisting Prisoners, and Mahmoud Albakry Alafifi.
Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the downing of the Russian aircraft, saying it had placed a bomb aboard the plane inside a soda can. The accused officers claimed that during his arrest, Abdel-Al wrested away from them and beat his own head against a metal pole, threatening to commit suicide if they detained him, and later died of his injuries, according to the court documents.
The head of Russia’s FSB security service, Alexander Bortnikov, said on Nov. 17 that the plane was brought down by a homemade bomb placed on board in a “terrorist” act. The plane crashed shortly taking off from Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. A lower court first acquitted the four, but prosecutors appealed, and in January 2003 the Cassation Court ordered a retrial. In the second trial, Shalaby and two others were convicted and the fourth was acquitted. One of the three was also convicted of falsifying records concerning the timing of his arrest to support their story.
Imadeldeen Hussein, editor of the influential independent daily al-Shororuk, wrote Monday that if Egyptian security agents were behind Regeni’s killing — an assumption he labeled as “disastrous” — the government would be best served if it acts transparently and announces it rather than emulate its handling of the Russian plane’s tragedy. Police officers forced the family to hurriedly bury the body under guard by security forces, according to prosecution documents. But prosecutors had the body disinterred and the autopsy found Abdel-Al had been beaten on his face with fists and a heavy object and was strangled by hand, the documents say.
“If we have information, it is best if we announce it, no matter how painful it is, so we don’t pay double the price in the future,” he wrote. “Regardless of what happened, we must tell the truth and quickly announce it. Postponing or delaying that is a weapon against us.” Torture was a “shortcut” often used by police, Alafifi told the AP. To close a case quickly, an officer “brings a suspect and tortures him to extract a confession regardless of whether it’s the truth or not.”
Egypt and Italy have grown close in the past two years, with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi forging a friendship. The two countries are bound by close economic ties and have been coordinating efforts on how to handle the rise of Islamic militancy in Libya, Egypt’s neighbor and Italy’s former colony. But Regeni’s death may have injected a sour note in the relationship. Shalaby and the other two officers were given a suspended sentence of one year in prison. The court justified the suspension — which meant they served no prison time and had no consequences to their jobs — by saying it wanted to give the officers the chance to return to “correct behavior.” It said their “history” and the circumstances of the crime “gave an impression that they won’t violate the law again,” without elaborating.
“I again express condolences to Giulio’s family and I say that which we have told the Egyptians: ‘Friendship is a precious thing and it is possible only in truth,’” Renzi said on Italy’s state radio on Friday. “This is why torture is rampant and officers get away with it,” said Khater, who was leading the rights center in representing Abdel-Al.
Eid, the rights lawyer, said the Egyptian legal system doesn’t classify torture as an “act against honor,” meaning it does not affect their right to hold government or police positions.
Shalaby was consistently promoted, eventually becoming chief investigator in the southern province of Assiut for a year before being transferred to Giza last year, where he was promoted to the chief of criminal investigations in December. He was praised in the media at the time for his successes in dismantling criminal organizations and terrorist cells.
Rights lawyer Ahmed Mamdouh said that Shalaby was on a “black list” by rights organizations of dozens of police officers linked to abuses.
Mamdouh pointed to a case in 2010, when Shalaby arrested Youssef Shaaban, a young journalist in Alexandria, and accused him of drug possession. Prosecutors investigated the case and dropped the charges.
Mamdouh, who works with Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, and other rights lawyers held a brief hunger strike in protest, accusing Shalaby of fabricating the charges to silence Shaaban.
The journalist had joined demonstrations in support of Khaled Saeed, an Alexandrian youth who in 2010 was beaten to death by police outside a cafe. Police initially claimed that Saeed suffocated to death after trying to swallow drugs during his arrest — until photos emerged of his body showing his face brutally disfigured by beating.
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Associated Press reporter Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan, Italy. Associated Press writer Sam Magdy contributed to this report.
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.