Italian Court Convicts Four Egyptian Officials Over 2016 Murder of Cambridge Student Giulio Regeni

A Rome court has delivered guilty verdicts against four Egyptian security service officers for their roles in the brutal kidnapping and murder of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian PhD student from Cambridge University. The officials—Major Sherif Abdel Salam, Colonel Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Major Mahmoud Hassan, and General Tariq Sabir—were tried in absentia, a decision upheld after years of legal wrangling with Egyptian authorities.

Regeni’s disappearance in Cairo on 25 January 2016, a date coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising, sparked an international outcry. His body, bearing extensive signs of torture, was found nine days later by a roadside. Italian prosecutors consistently maintained that Egyptian state agents were responsible, asserting that Regeni was abducted, interrogated, and killed. Egyptian officials repeatedly denied involvement, initially claiming Regeni died in a road accident before suggesting he was caught in a criminal gang dispute.

The trial proceeded after Italy's Supreme Court ruled that the defendants had been properly notified of the proceedings, despite the Egyptian government's refusal to provide their addresses. The Italian court's ruling underscores the persistent allegations of severe human rights abuses and the suppression of dissent within Egypt, particularly against those perceived to be engaged in sensitive research or activism.