Italy to return its ambassador to Egypt

Italy is to re-instate its ambassador to Egypt after more than a year after the previous official was recalled in the wake of the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni.

According to the Italian Foreign Minister, Angelino Alfano, the new Ambassador to Egypt, Giampaolo Cantini, will submit his credentials to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Alfano did not say exactly when Giampaolo Cantini, its new ambassador to Egypt, would return to Cairo.

Italy’s decision to return its ambassador to Egypt comes just over a year since the torture and brutal murder of Italian Cambridge University graduate Giulio Regeni caused heightened tension between the two countries.

“Sending an authoritative liaison [ambassador] will help, through contacts with the Egyptian authorities, reinforce judicial cooperation and as a consequence the search for the truth,” Alfano said in a statement.

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Then 28-year-old Regeni’s mutilated and naked corpse was found in a ditch in Cairo in February 2016. Regeni was in Egypt to research the country’s independent unions for his doctorate thesis at Cambridge, and was said to have attracted the suspicion of the Cairo government before his disappearance from a metro station on 25 January, nine days before his body was found.

Although the Egyptian government denied any involvement in Regeni’s abduction, torture and subsequent death from the horrifying ordeal, Italy recalled its ambassador after accusations that Egypt was withholding information regarding the incident and hindering the investigation process.

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Regeni’s death sparked international outrage, with thousands across the world attending protests and memorials, and signing petitions to pressure the Egyptian government to find and charge those responsible.

The announcement has been met with condemnation from Regeni’s parents. “Only when we will have the truth about why and who killed Giulio, when we are given, alive, his torturers and all their accomplices, only then can the ambassador return to Cairo without trampling on our dignity,” the family said in a statement.