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An Italian judge has suspended the trial Murdered student Giulio Regini In Cairo, the defendants may not have been informed that they have been charged due to fears.
The first hearing of the long-awaited trial of four Egyptian security officials on Thursday was spent on the question of whether the defendant’s trial in absentia was fair.
Italian prosecutors in Rome have urged the court to continue the trial in absentia, saying that Egyptian authorities obstructed the investigation into the killing of a 28-year-old graduate student in Cairo in 2016 and prevented Italy from contacting the suspect.
Prosecutor Sergio Colleoc said in court: “The critical juncture is that Italy has the right to try very serious crimes that may occur abroad but involve Italian citizens.”
But Judge Antonella Capri ruled that the defense attorney appointed by the court won the case. The defense attorney argued that since no one could contact the Egyptian defendant, the proceedings were invalid.
Judge Capri canceled the decision to try the four people on the grounds of the need to guarantee a fair trial and ordered the documents to be returned to the prosecutor, who must try to find the suspect again.
Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdul Sharif, Chief of the Egyptian Intelligence Directorate, General Tariq Sabir, the former head of national security, Colonel Usham Helmi of the police, and the former head of investigation in Cairo Colonel Atal Carmel Mohamed Ibrahim was accused of “serious kidnapping”. Sharif was also charged with “conspiracy to commit serious murder.”
Tranquillino Sarno, a lawyer appointed by the court to defend Athar Kamel, said that the prosecution had insufficient detailed information on the four and even misjudged the age and position of his client because he was “a simple policeman.”
“The defendants don’t know anything. They are not accused. It is not that we are here today. It is not who is defending them,” Sarno told the court.
At the preliminary hearing in May, a judge ruled that media reports meant that news of the investigation would reach them. Shortly after the hearing was suspended at around 10pm local time (20:00 GMT), the decision was overturned on Thursday.
Alessandra Ballerini, a lawyer representing the Regini family, said the ruling was a “frustration” and “rewarded Egypt’s arrogance.”
“We will not give up,” she said. “We want to get justice for Giulio Regeni.”
Lawyer Alessandra Ballerini (left) and the family of the victim attended the start of the Giulio Regeni murder trial [Yara Nardi/Reuters]Regeni’s parents and sister attended the hearing in the bunker room of the Rebibbia prison in Rome, which is often the stage for mafia trials.
The prosecutor submitted a 13-point list of evidence to the court, pointing out Egypt’s attempts to sabotage the investigation, including how it tried to prevent suspects from being informed that they have been charged.
Prosecutor Koleoko said that Egyptian investigators delayed in the case, ignored 39 of 64 separate requests for information, and handed over normally useless materials, including footage of subway stations, but it missed Regini’s time frame. Disappeared.
Italy also tried about 30 times to obtain the address of the suspect through diplomatic and government channels. At the time, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi that lack of cooperation was affecting bilateral relations.
“I don’t think humans can do more (find four suspects),” Colleoc said.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio welcomed the first hearing in Rome, saying it was “an unexpected result within a few weeks of the discovery of Giulio’s body”.
The government stated that it would seek compensation for damages through civil litigation, as a symbolic expression of support for the Regeni family.
Regney, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016. About a week later, his body was found, and an autopsy revealed that he was brutally tortured before his death.
The Italian and Egyptian prosecutors originally planned to investigate the case together, but the two sides fell out and reached very different conclusions.
The Egyptian police initially said Regini died in a traffic accident, and then said that he was kidnapped by gangsters and then killed in a gun battle. In November last year, the Egyptian prosecutor stated that the whereabouts of the murderer of Regeni is still unknown.
Italian prosecutors claimed that they had eyewitness testimony and other “important elements of evidence” indicating that security personnel were involved in the murder.
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