Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has urged Egypt to collaborate seriously on investigations regarding the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Egypt, so that relations between the two countries can return to normal.
“For us, a return to normality of relations depends on serious collaboration" on the Regeni case, he told RAI radio in an interview.
Gentiloni also said that contact between the two nations on the Regeni issue had now been restored after a brief period of silence, and that he was hopeful of further progress.
Regeni, an Italian PhD candidate at Cambridge University researching labor issues disappeared in Cairo on January 25, the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising that led to the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak.
Regeni's body was found on February 3, bearing signs of torture. Critics of the Egyptian government immediately stated that security services must have been responsible for the student's death. However, the Egyptian government has denied the involvement of security forces, stating that the culprits may have been criminals with their own motivations.
The search for Regeni's killers continues, although Egyptian investigators claim to have found some of his belongings in an apartment used by a gang of alleged robbers known for impersonating police officers.
Italy has demanded swift results in the ongoing investigation and closer collaboration with Egyptian authorities. But progress has been slow, resulting in a souring of relations between the two nations, which are normally close trading partners.
Italian officials have insisted that Egypt hand over extensive phone records covering large areas of Cairo for the day on which Regeni went missing, but Egypt has declined to do so, saying that such records cannot be made available to another nation directly without compromising Egyptian sovereignty.
Italy has also insisted that CCTV footage be handed over, but Egyptian investigators say that footage for the area in which Regeni was last seen does not exist.
In his interview with RAI radio, Gentiloni said that relations between the two nations had now been restored after a period of silence. On April 8, after a summit in Rome failed, Italy broke off judicial collaboration and recalled its ambassador to Cairo for consultations, but links were now restored.
While Italy is still dissatisfied with the level of Egyptian cooperation, prosecutors from the two nations are now talking again, said Gentiloni.
"The Rome prosecutor's office has sent a new request [for information] and I know that contacts between the prosecutors' office are ongoing," he said.
The foreign minister said that he hoped Rome's Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone would be able to revive some "useful contacts".
However, he said, until the situation improves, the Italian government was "maintaining a position of dissatisfaction."
In a report on Friday, Italian news agency ANSA said that Regeni’s family had expressed fears over the arrest in Egypt the family's lawer, Ahmed Abdullah.
Amnesty International stated that Abdullah had been among those arrested in relation to protests that took place in Egypt on April 25. The anti-government protests had been centered around opposition to the transfer for two Red Sea islands to Saudi control in an agreement signed on April 8.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
