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Body of Italian Man Missing in Egypt Found With Signs of Torture An Italian’s Brutal Death in Egypt Chills Relations
(about 9 hours later)
CAIRO — The body of an Italian research student who disappeared in Cairo on Jan. 25, the fifth anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, has been found with “evident signs of torture” on the outskirts of the city, an Egyptian prosecutor said on Thursday. CAIRO — Four months ago, Giulio Regeni, an Italian doctoral candidate at Cambridge University, arrived in Cairo to improve his Arabic and conduct research among the city’s street vendors.
The discovery of the student, Giulio Regeni, 28, a Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge University, was met with anger in Italy, where the Foreign Ministry summoned Egypt’s ambassador to press for a joint investigation. The members of a government-led trade delegation from Italy also left Egypt earlier than originally planned. Now Mr. Regeni, 28, is dead. His body was discovered, half-naked and “with evident signs of torture,” in a ditch on the city limits, prompting an angry reaction on Thursday from Italian officials who seemed deeply skeptical that Egypt would be able, or willing, to find those who killed him.
Mr. Regeni arrived in Cairo in October to study Arabic and to conduct field research for his doctorate in labor movements. He disappeared on Jan. 25 despite tight security in the Egyptian capital, where the authorities had sought to quell any public demonstrations connected to the fall of Mr. Mubarak. In Rome, Italian officials summoned Egypt’s ambassador and pressed him to allow a joint investigation into the killing. In Cairo, a government-led Italian trade delegation cut short its stay and went home.
Friends said Mr. Regeni had last been seen walking toward a metro station during the evening on his way to meet a friend at a downtown cafe. The search received extensive public attention in recent days, as friends appealed for information and his parents flew to Cairo. “We want the truth to come out, every last bit of it,” said the Italian foreign affairs minister, Paolo Gentiloni, in an interview with the national broadcaster RAI. “We owe that much to a family that has been stricken in an irreparable way and, at the very least, has the right to know the truth.”
Mr. Regeni’s body was discovered Wednesday night in a suburb of Cairo, on the desert highway leading to Alexandria, said Ahmed Nagy, the Egyptian prosecutor in charge of the investigation. The complication, for Egypt and Italy, though largely unspoken, was that Mr. Regeni did not just bear the telltale signs of torture, but that the cigarette burns and head wounds were a signature form of abuse frequently associated with the Egyptian security forces. There was no proof Mr. Regeni had even been in police custody, and it would be out of character for the authorities to abuse a Westerner. But worries about the impunity of the Egyptian security forces have been growing of late, and an initial declaration by officials that Mr. Regeni had died in a car accident also raised suspicions.
Mr. Nagy said that Mr. Regeni’s body had been found naked from the waist down and that there were “evident signs of torture all over the body, concentrated around the face and the back,” including multiple stab wounds. The cause of death was not clear, he said. Mr. Regini vanished on Jan. 25 when, on the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ultimately ousted President Hosni Mubarak, he left his apartment for a meeting with a friend at a downtown cafe. It was a day of considerable tension in Cairo: thousands of police officers were scattered across the city to halt any antigovernment protest after a weekslong crackdown that saw police arrest activists, shutter arts spaces and search apartments.
His body was identified by one of his roommates and was being kept at a morgue in central Cairo awaiting an autopsy, Mr. Nagy added. Friends said that Mr. Regeni was last seen walking toward his local metro station at about 7 p.m. The search to find him ramped up in recent days amid Internet appeals for information and as his parents flew to Cairo, but ended on Wednesday when his body was found on the desert highway leading to Alexandria.
Dozens of Egyptians disappeared after being taken into custody by security forces in recent months, often without being arrested, rights groups say, but it would be rare for a foreigner to disappear in such a manner. Ahmed Nagy, the Egyptian prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said Mr. Regeni was naked from the waist down and with “evident signs of torture all over.” The wounds, which in addition to apparent cigarette burns included small stab marks, were “concentrated around the face and body,” Mr. Nagy said.
Friends said they could not rule out the possibility that his death was the result of a random criminal act, a botched kidnapping or Islamic militancy. In August, a militant group associated with the Islamic State beheaded Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian man, after snatching him on the outskirts of Cairo. An autopsy completed on Thursday afternoon indicated that he had died from “internal bleeding to the brain as a result of a beating to the head.”
“We want the truth to come out, every last bit of it,” the Italian foreign affairs minister, Paolo Gentiloni, told the national broadcaster RAI, Agence France-Presse reported. “We owe that much to a family that has been stricken in an irreparable way and, at the very least, has the right to know the truth.” Mr. Nagy cautioned, however, that his findings were preliminary and that the forensic authorities had yet to issue a final report.
The circumstances of Mr. Regeni’s death prompted the Italian trade delegation, led by the economic development minister, Federica Guidi, to cut short a visit to Cairo. In Rome, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it expected “maximum collaboration at all levels in light of the exceptional gravity of what happened.” Suspicions of an official hand in Mr. Regeni’s death stem from the disappearance into custody of hundreds of Egyptians, often without formal arrest, over the past year, human rights groups say.
Italy said it was seeking “full clarity” on the case and “renewed the request that Egyptian authorities immediately start a joint investigation with the participation of Italian experts.” Still, it would be rare for a foreigner to disappear in such a manner. And Mr. Regeni, described by friends as an open-spirited and culturally dexterous student, was conducting research that appeared to be of little threat to jittery authorities.
The Egyptian ambassador to Italy, Amr Mostafa Kamal Helmy, pledged that Egypt would collaborate fully, according to the statement. Although Mr. Regeni’s chosen subject, informal labor organization, can be politically sensitive in Egypt, he had been cautious in his work, said Rabab el-Mahdi, his supervisor at the American University in Cairo. “He steered clear of anything that was politicized,” she said.
Labor movements, the subject of Mr. Regini’s studies, can be a delicate subject in Egypt, where the government has sought to quell many forms of dissent. Friends said they could not rule out the possibility that his death was the result of a random criminal act, a botched kidnapping or Islamist militancy, though they acknowledged having no special insight into the investigation. In August, a militant group associated with the Islamic State beheaded a Croatian man, Tomislav Salopek, after snatching him on the outskirts of Cairo.
But Mr. Regeni’s supervisor at the American University in Cairo, Rabab el-Mahdi, said he had been cautious about his work in Egypt. “He steered clear of anything that was politicized,” she said. Still, there was concern that the authorities would not conduct a thorough investigation.
Egyptian investigations into the deaths of other foreigners in recent months, including a group of Mexican tourists who were killed by accident by security forces in the Western Desert and the hundreds of tourists on a Russian jet that was apparently brought down by a bomb, have been criticized for their lack of transparency. “What we know is that it is an accident,” Alaa Azmi, the deputy head of criminal investigations in Cairo’s twin province of Giza, told The Associated Press before the autopsy had been completed.
On social media, some Egyptians expressed alarm that a foreigner could disappear on a day when the security forces were out in force on the streets of Cairo. Reflexive denials of foul play are common among Egyptian officials, especially in matters that could embarrass the state. Investigations into the deaths of other foreigners in recent months, including eight Mexican tourists who were killed by accident by the security forces in the Western Desert and the hundreds of tourists on a Russian jet that was apparently brought down by a bomb, have been criticized for their lack of transparency.
The novelist Ahdaf Soueif said on her Facebook page that there was “something so extra sad about a person who comes to Egypt in good faith to live and study and gets caught in this nightmare, this obtuse and brutal thuggery that’s the undertone of our lives here today.” The murky circumstances of Mr. Regeni’s death caused a visible chill in Egypt’s relations with Italy, which was the first Western country to welcome Mr. Sisi after the ouster of the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013. On Wednesday, reports that Mr. Regeni’s body had been found on Wednesday prompted an Italian trade delegation, led by the economic development minister, Federica Guidi, to cut short a visit to Cairo. Earlier, Ms. Guida had urged Mr. Sisi to intervene personally in the case, Italian media outlets reported.
On Thursday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was seeking “full clarity” on the case and expected “maximum collaboration at all levels in light of the exceptional gravity of what happened.”
Italy said it was asking Egypt to “immediately start a joint investigation with the participation of Italian experts.”
Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, did not say whether that request would be met. After a meeting with Mr. Gentiloni in London he said only that the two countries had agreed to increase cooperation “to determine the cause of the death.”
Mr. Regeni’s hometown, Fiumicello, of 5,000 people in northeastern Italy, declared that Sunday would be a day of mourning. “If you go into a bar, you see dark faces, silences,” the town’s mayor, Ennio Scridel, told Sky Tg24.
On her Facebook page, the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif said there was “something so extra sad about a person who comes to Egypt in good faith to live and study and gets caught in this nightmare, this obtuse and brutal thuggery that’s the undertone of our lives here today.”