Verdict against Egyptian secret service agent: Ten years in prison for the torture and killing of Giulio Regeni

“Truth for Giulio Regeni”. This sentence has been emblazoned on hundreds of yellow banners for years, on the facades of university buildings across Italy, at town halls and even union headquarters. Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old graduate student, was kidnapped in Cairo on January 25, 2016 and found dead on a highway a few days later, his body marked from head to toe with signs of severe torture.

A first step towards the truth was taken on Monday evening in Rome. There, a court sentenced three Egyptian secret service employees in absentia to 10 years in prison for their involvement in the kidnapping of the young Italian. The public prosecutor's office had demanded life for one of the three for Regeni's murder. Here, however, there was an acquittal due to a lack of evidence, just as the superior general of the three convicts was acquitted.

Regeni was in Cairo because he wanted to write his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge on the independent hawker unions in Egypt's capital. But he quickly came under suspicion that he was actually a spy for a foreign power. One of his contacts from the trade unions, who also worked as an informant for the Egyptian secret services, contributed to this suspicion.

Shortly after Regeni's death, however, the Egyptian government presented the alleged perpetrators: five dead petty criminals who had allegedly died in a firefight with the police, on whom Regeni's passport and other documents were also "found". However, in the face of numerous contradictions, this supposed lead quickly collapsed.

Italy's ambassador in Cairo at the time, as well as the public prosecutor's office in Rome, immediately suspected that Regeni had fallen victim to an "unofficial arrest" by the secret services. And in a first phase, Egypt's judiciary itself provided important evidence, for example the interrogation protocols of the trade unionist who had handed over Regeni to the Egyptian services. The names of the secret service agents now convicted in Rome were also mentioned in those interrogations.

After that, the regime in power in Cairo under General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did everything in its power to hinder the investigation and the trial against the alleged perpetrators, which has been ongoing since 2021. Egypt refused to provide the addresses of the accused so that the charges could be served on them. However, the Italian Constitutional Court ultimately ruled that proceedings could take place without serving the indictment, since it could be assumed that the defendants were well informed. They never appeared in court and were represented there by public defenders appointed by the Italian judiciary.

In addition to the documents initially provided by the Egyptian judiciary, witness statements played an important role. Witness statements like that of an Egyptian who was arrested on the same day as Regeni and placed in the cell next door to the secret prison. He reported on the young Italian's inhuman screams that he had to listen to.

On the basis of this evidence, the accused Egyptian intelligence officers were sentenced to three times ten years in prison. Regeni's family expressed satisfaction with the guilty verdict, even though the court dropped the murder charge against one of the defendants. “We wanted the truth, we got justice,” she explained.

Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani is less enthusiastic; after all, the dictator al-Sisi is an important partner for Italy, for example in protecting refugees. “It was not Egypt that was convicted, but only three people,” he downplayed the guilty verdict and added that now “the second and third instances” of the trial would come. The opposition Partito Democratico described the words of the minister from the Meloni government as “disgraceful” and demanded that he should face a debate in parliament.