ROME, ITALY – Eight years after the brutal murder of Italian graduate Giulio Regeni, a new trial has commenced in his home country as Italy seeks justice for the slain student. Regeni was abducted, tortured, and killed in Cairo in 2016, and the case has been a source of tension between Italy and Egypt.
The 28-year-old PhD student at the University of Cambridge was conducting research on Egypt’s independent trade unions, a sensitive subject in a country where protest movements have been repressed by the authoritarian government. His mutilated and half-naked body was found in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo, showing signs of extreme torture such as broken bones, stab wounds, cigarette burns, and bruises.
Italian prosecutors named four Egyptian security officers as suspects in Regeni’s killing, but they have been unable to bring them to justice. In December 2020, all four suspects were cleared of responsibility in Egypt, but Italy has refused to drop the case. A trial against Regeni’s killers in Italy was thrown out of court in 2021, only to be reinstated last September by the Italian Constitutional Court.
The case has strained diplomatic relations between Italy and Egypt, with Italian investigators accusing the Egyptian government of being uncooperative and even openly hostile. The theory put forward by Italian prosecutors suggests that Regeni was under surveillance and was abducted by Egyptian security forces, possibly because of his research and left-wing affiliations or through a mistaken identity as a spy.
The new trial in Rome has been adjourned to March 18, with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and other politicians called to testify. The trial represents a long-awaited moment for Regeni’s parents, as they continue to seek justice for their son’s murder.