The ministry is “following with the utmost attention and concern the affair of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian student who mysteriously disappeared on the evening of January 25 in the centre of the capital”, it said.
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Regeni’s body was discovered Wednesday night in a suburb of Cairo, on the desert highway leading to Alexandria, said Ahmed Nagy, the Egyptian prosecutor in charge of the investigation.
An Italian economic development delegation has cut short a business trip to Egypt following the discovery. There were no major protests during the anniversary or during the days leading to the anniversary of the autocrat’s toppling, but there was a heavier police presence when Regeni went missing. “I knew from another friend who was waiting for him in the street that he never arrived”, he said.
Reports said Regeni, who was studying for a PhD with the department of Politics and International Studies, had been living in Cairo since September to pursue a doctoral thesis on the Egyptian economy. His body showed signs of cigarette burns, stab wounds and torture, the Associated Press quoted Egyptian prosecutors as saying.
The deputy head of criminal investigations in Cairo’s twin province of Giza, Alaa Azmi, said Regeni’s body found on Wednesday morning with ‘bruises and cuts’.
His friends had also launched a campaign to raise awareness of his disappearance using the hashtag #whereisgiulio. The town of 5,000 declared Sunday a day of mourning.
Local media had reported that an Egyptian investigator had ruled out foul play in the case.
“If you go into a bar, you see dark faces, silences, looks that let escape all the sadness of a small community like ours”, Scridel told Sky Tg24.
In July 2015, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hailed Egypt’s military-backed President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a “great leader”.
But the Egyptian authorities have denied claims of police brutality.
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IS militants claimed they had planted a bomb on board although so far Egypt has said it has found no evidence the Metrojet flight was brought down by terrorism.
