Regeni suspect took part in death probe

One of the four Egyptian intelligence
officers on trial in absentia in Rome in the January-February
2016 torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni took
part in the joint Egyptian-Italian initial investigations into
the Cambridge University doctoral researcher's death, witnesses
told the trial Thursday.

   
In the inspection carried out on 10 February 2016 on the site
where Regeni's half-naked and mutilated body was found in a
ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway on February 3, an
inspection carried out by the two investigation teams, one
Egyptian and the other Italian, one of the defendants in the
trial in Rome, intelligence officer Colonel Uhsam Helmi, was
also present, said a witness belonging to the ROS and SCO
special branch police units.

   
National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates,
Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Helmi, and Major Magdi
Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are on trial on suspicion of torturing
to death the 28-year-oild Friuli-born Regeni from January 25 to
February 3 that year because they thought he was a spy due to
his politically sensitive work on independent Cairo street
seller unions.

   
Regeni was tortured by being brutally beaten including with
sticks and suffering burns, the prosecution's medical consultant
told the trial last week.

   
He suffered punches, kicks, burns, beating on the soles of the
feet and painful handcuffing of his wrists and ankles, among
other things, said
coroner and prosecution consultant Vittorio Finceschi, who
carried out the autopsy on the body.

   
On February 6 2016 the forensic expert examined the body of the
researcher, who was tortured so badly that his mother Paola
Deffendi said she could only recognise him "from the tip of his
nose".

   
Deffendi said "all the evil in the world" was visited on her
son's body.

   
The four officers are on trial even though it has proved
impossible, due to Egyptian lack of cooperation, to inform them
of the proceedings.

   
Regeni is believed to have been killed due to the nature of his
research for Girton College at the British university, into
independent street vendor trade unions.

   
One of the union chiefs reportedly fingered him as spy.

   
His body, according to Finceschi's autopsy, showed major signs
of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from a
severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and
assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among
them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs,
arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body
including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or
awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made
with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive
cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades
made with a hard and hot object; a brain haemorrhage; and a
broken cervical vertebra, which ultimately caused death.

   

photo: Regeni's parents Claudio Regeni and Paola Deffendi at
Thursday's hearing

   

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