"We did what a civilized country had to do for an atrocious and unacceptable story. We did not accept convenient truths. I have only one regret: why did we only hear this news on January 31st? If we had known before we could have acted earlier".
The former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, reconstructed before the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the murder of Giulio Regeni, the actions taken by his executive in January 2016, when the tragic story of the researcher killed in Cairo emerged
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On the date of January 31st however
the Farnesina intervened with a note specifying that "the Italian government institutions and our security services were informed from the first hours following Giulio's death on January 25, 2016" and reminds that "all the steps taken with the highest Egyptian authorities have been extensively documented and made known to the competent institutions in Rome by Ambassador Massari in his duties as Ambassador of Italy in Cairo "
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During the hearing, Renzi stated that "the leaders of the Government, as soon as they became aware of the event that risked becoming dramatic and serious, they started" putting in place "all the tools, working at the institutional level as a team: we immediately wanted judicial cooperation that was not taken for granted ".
The former head of government then returned to the decision to recall the ambassador stationed in Cairo to Italy.
"I chose to withdraw the ambassador because we felt that President Al Sisi had not fully grasped our resolve to ask for the truth. It was an extreme gesture to say: we mean it. It is a gesture that is done once and for all. it must produce consequences. I met Al Sisi in September 2016 at the G20, on the sidelines of a dinner. I felt the duty to tell him all my pain for what had happened, my choices and my requests ".
On this point, Renzi explained that in today's situation, in which the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office is about to close the investigations against five members of the Egyptian apparatuses accused of being the material authors of Regeni's kidnapping, it would be useful "to appoint a special envoy in order to urge the regime of President Al Sisi to allow the trial of those responsible identified by the Capitoline prosecutors who have done extraordinary work in recent years ".
