Italian student Giulio Regeni found dead in Cairo 'with signs of torture'

Italian authorities are demanding a full investigation into the death of an Italian student whose body was found in Cairo bearing signs that he had been tortured.

The body of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old who was pursuing a PhD at Cambridge, was found in a ditch in the suburbs outside Cairo on Wednesday night, days after the Italian government announced it was growing increasingly concerned about his disappearance.

The Egyptian prosecutor leading the investigation team on the case said Regeni’s body had been found with marks on it, cuts to the ears and signs of beatings and a “slow death”. A source at the Giza public prosecutor’s office said Regeni’s body was found on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road, on an overpass close to Cairo’s 6th October district and that his body appeared to have been dragged along the ground. Responding to earlier reports, the source added that the body did not have any noticeable stab wounds, but that other marks could have been cigarette burns.

More details about Regeni’s body and possible cause of death will likely be clarified soon. An autopsy report was delivered to the Italian embassy in Cairo on Thursday evening.

Ansa is reporting that Egyptian authorities have turned Regeni’s remains over to Umberto I Italian hospital in Cairo, citing anonymous sources. The Italian news agency also reported that a team of seven investigators - from the state police, carabinieri and Interpol, would be leaving for Cairo on Friday to closely follow the investigation.

Reports in local media said he was found naked from the waist down. It is believed that he may have been killed days earlier.

The Italian foreign ministry released no new details about the murder on Thursday. It summoned the Egyptian ambassador in Rome, Amr Mostafa Kamal Helmy, to express concern about Regeni’s death. “Helmy expressed profound condolences for Regeni’s death and assured us Egypt will cooperate fully in finding those responsible for this criminal act,” the Italian foreign ministry said. Italy has asked for Regeni’s body to be repatriated as soon as possible and has demanded that Egypt open a joint investigation to ascertain the truth about his death in conjunction with Italian experts.

While Regeni was known to be an academic researcher, the Italian news agency Ansa on Thursday reported that he also wrote about his work on Egyptian labour unions for Il Manifesto, the Italian communist newspaper. Ansa reported that he used a pseudonym because he was allegedly concerned for his safety.

His work for Il Manifesto was confirmed by Simone Pieranni, the newspaper’s foreign editor, who said it would be publishing Regeni’s previous works on Friday, including a piece written shortly before his death.

Regeni, from Fiumicello, near Udine in Italy’s north-east, had been a member of Girton college, Cambridge, but had been living in Cairo since September to pursue a doctoral thesis on the Egyptian economy. He was described in Italian reports as a passionate and gifted student.

When he initially went missing on 25 January, the fifth anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, there were suspicions that Regeni could have been caught up in a police raid against demonstrators. One report said he had disappeared after leaving his home in an upper middle-class area to meet a friend.

Anne Alexander, a research fellow at the centre for arts, social science and humanities department at Cambridge and, like Regeni, a fellow specialist in Egyptian labour movements, said she was concerned about what his death could mean for the safety of other researchers on Egypt, particularly those looking at sensitive topics.

“Everyone I’ve spoken about this is shocked by the news coming out about the likely circumstances of his death. If these reports are confirmed we want to do all we can to ensure that those responsible are held accountable,” she said.

Alexander added that concern for Regeni’s welfare had been fuelled in part by reports of forced disappearances and mass arrests that took place before 25 January.

“Hundreds of Egyptian citizens have disappeared over the past few years, often turning up in police custody and frequently having experienced torture. A much smaller number are found dead,” she added.

The Italian foreign ministry declined to comment when asked whether Egyptian authorities were respecting a demand that Italy and Egypt jointly investigate Regeni’s death, citing a desire to respect the family’s wish for privacy.

Italy’s economic development minister, Federica Guidi, reportedly cut short an Italian business delegation’s trip to Cairo, in which the heads of Italian energy companies were meeting Egyptian officials.

Guidi had reportedly met Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, on Wednesday morning – before Regeni was found – and was told the matter would receive the president’s personal attention.

An official at the Egyptian embassy in Italy could not definitely confirm that the trip had abruptly ended.

The meeting was a sign of the important business ties between the two countries, particularly following the discovery of a major natural gas field in Egypt by Eni, the Italian state-backed energy group, which was described by the company’s chief executive last year as a “game changer” for Egypt.

Earlier, the deputy head of criminal investigations in Cairo’s twin province of Giza, Alaa Azmi, had said that an initial investigation had showed Regeni’s death to be a road accident, adding that the preliminary forensic report had not mentioned any burns.

“We have to wait for the full report by forensic experts. But what we know is that it is an accident,” Azmi had said.

Regeni’s death is not the first incident of a foreign national dying in suspicious circumstances on Egyptian soil. Frenchman Eric Lang died after being beaten by his fellow inmates while in police custody in September 2013. Egyptian security forces killed 12 people, including eight Mexican tourists who were travelling in the Western Desert in September 2015. The kidnap and beheading of Croatian national Tomislav Salopek by the Islamic State affiliate Sinai Province in August 2015 was seen as an unusual instance of kidnap of a foreign national in Egypt.

In the days following his disappearance, Regeni’s friends had tried to find information about his whereabouts on Twitter using the hashtag #whereisgiulio.

A Cambridge university spokesman said: “We’re deeply saddened to hear of the death of Giulio Regeni. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

“The vice-chancellor and mistress of Girton college has been in contact with Giulio’s family and we are in touch with the Italian authorities.”