Egypt denies police involvement in torture, killing of Italian student

The Egyptian Ministry of Justice has denied media reports claiming the murdered Cambridge student whose battered body was found in Cairo last month was tortured before he was killed.

“Reports claiming the director of Forensic Medicine Authority, Hisham Abdul Hamid, has presented papers confirming that Giulio Regeni was systematically tortured for seven days before he was killed are completely untrue,” the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

Judge Shaaban Al-Shami added that Abdul Hamid has not testified on this matter, and “was not asked to do so”.

Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Senate, Pier Ferdinando Casini, threatened to withdraw the Italian ambassador to Egypt and review diplomatic relations between the two countries if Cairo did not provide convincing answers about Regeni’s torture and murder.

Giulio Regeni, 28, was found dead near a highway outside the Egyptian capital on 3 February, nine days after he disappeared.