The Italian Public Prosecution referred to the court an indictment against 4 officers of the Egyptian security for negligent trial, including the premeditated murder of researcher Giulio Regeni in early 2016 in Cairo.
Yesterday, the official Italian News Agency reported the decision of the Prosecutor in Rome to try the four officers of the Egyptian National Security Agency, namely: Major General Tariq Saber, Colonel Aser Kamel Muhammad Ibrahim, Captain Hossam Helmy, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif.
In the indictment he submitted to the court, Rome's Attorney General, Michele Prestipino Giarrata, charged kidnapping, torture and murder against the four Egyptian officers.
Giarrata said that if the indictment is accepted by the court, the accused will be tried in absentia in Italy.
On December 11, the Rome Prosecution office announced that it had gathered conclusive and sufficient evidence, after nearly 5 years of investigations, to indict the officers of the Egyptian National Security Agency, and gave them 20 days to submit defense data to attend the initial hearing.
Despite all the evidence provided by Italy, the Egyptian authorities still deny the involvement of the National Security Agency or any other party in the crime, and claim that the Italian researcher was killed by a criminal gang that wanted to steal him, and that all of its members were killed during a security operation.
Attorney General of Rome Giartata (European News Agency)
The case was closed and
recently, and following the announcement of the end of the Italian investigations into the case and the formal charges against the four Egyptian officers, the Egyptian Public Prosecution announced the closure of the case file temporarily, and the failure to initiate a criminal case against the accused, which was rejected by Rome.
And last month, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed that the trial of the accused in the Regeni case would lead to shocking facts.
While the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding Egypt to extradite the accused in the case, the Italian government is under internal pressure to achieve justice for the victim.
At the beginning of this month, Regeni's parents announced their willingness to file a legal complaint against their country's government for violating the law on arms sales to countries that "commit grave human rights violations," and the suit specifically relates to the handover of an Italian frigate to Egypt late last month.
Regeni, a 26-year-old graduate student at Cambridge University, was conducting a PhD research in Cairo, and he disappeared for 9 days, after which his body was found with signs of torture on February 3, 2016.