The trial of the four Egyptian 007s accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing Giulio Regeni in January 2016 in Cairo opens in Rome.
A proceeding that could see former prime ministers, former ministers and officials who held top roles in the security services and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time of the dramatic murder appear as witnesses.
The parties to the proceedings have submitted the list of witnesses to the attention of the judges of the First Court of Assizes, requesting that the current President of the Egyptian Republic, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, also be summoned to Piazzale Clodio.
Among the people "mentioned" and on whom the judges will have to express their opinion are also the former prime minister Matteo Renzi and the former foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni.
And again: Marco Minniti, former head of the delegated authority for the security of the Republic, the three heads of the secret services who have succeeded one another over time and the then general secretary of the Farnesina, Elisabetta Belloni as well as the CEO of Eni, Claudio Descalzi.
The defendants, depending on their positions, are accused of complicity in aggravated bodily harm, aggravated murder and aggravated kidnapping.
At the end of a tortuous judicial process and after the Consulta, last September, had brought the proceedings out of the quagmire in which they had ended up due to the absence of the accused, the Rome magistrate sent General Tariq Sabir to trial, the Colonels Athar Kamal and Uhsam Helmi and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdel Sharif.
The Council's decision therefore marked a turning point in the proceedings by declaring the art illegitimate.
420-bis, paragraph 3, of the code of criminal procedure, in the part in which it does not provide that the judge proceeds in his absence for crimes committed through acts of torture when, due to the lack of assistance from the State to which the accused belongs, it is it is impossible to have proof that the latter, although aware of the proceedings, was made aware of the pending proceedings.
A decision which intervenes by declaring the article not legitimate in the part in which it does not provide for the trial to proceed for the crimes of torture defined by the art.
1, paragraph 1, of the New York Convention and that is committed by public officials or by those who in any case act in an official capacity, and there must be an obstructive attitude on the part of the State to which the defendants belong which makes it impossible to prove that they are aware of the pending of the proceedings against them.
Based on what was established by the Council, it is sufficient that the defendants, as already established, are aware of the "existence" of the proceedings.
In this way the obstructionism implemented by the Egyptian authorities was overcome.
The Presidency of the Council was a civil party in the trial and requested, in the event of conviction of the defendants, compensation of 2 million euros.
In the act of civil action, the State Attorney's Office writes that we are in the presence of "a horrendous crime" which "has profoundly affected the national community, due to the incomprehensible motivations and the cruel methods of execution".
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