Italy accuses four members of the Egyptian security forces of the murder of Giulio Regeni

A banner with the image of Giulio Regeni, on January 25, 2017 in Rome.Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters

The Rome Prosecutor's Office announced on Thursday that it had concluded its investigation into the disappearance, torture and murder of the Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016, and has identified four members of the Egyptian security forces as suspects in the crime.

The decision highlights their division of opinions, after almost five years of dubious collaboration, with their counterparts in Egypt, who at the end of November temporarily closed their investigation and assured that they still do not know who the murderer was.

Possible charges Italian prosecutors will bring against Egyptian agents - Uhsam Helmi, Tariq Sabir, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, and Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif - include charges of kidnapping and complicity in homicide, both aggravated, and complicity in serious bodily injury, according to the Italian agency ANSA.

Sharif, considered the murderer, is also charged with serious bodily injury and murder.

The case of a fifth suspect who had initially been under investigation has been closed for lack of evidence.

“No one would have thought of getting to where we are today.

Today is an important phase for Italian democracy and for Egypt.

Nothing is going to stop us.

Our family struggle has become a civilizational struggle for human rights ”, Regeni's mother, Paola Deffendi, slipped at a press conference after the announcement by the Rome Prosecutor's Office.

Regeni, a Cambridge University PhD candidate who was conducting research on independent unions in Egypt, disappeared on January 25, 2016, on the fifth anniversary of the 2011 Revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, and passed through at least two barracks of the National Security Agency before his murder, according to the reconstruction of the events prepared by Italian prosecutors from the account of five key witnesses.

The body of the 28-year-old boy was found on February 3 next to a highway on the outskirts of Cairo with marks of having suffered severe torture.

Italian prosecutors have also confirmed the sending of notifications regarding the closure of the investigation as a step prior to the start of a trial.

However, these have had to be referred to Italian lawyers appointed by a court in the country, since the four suspects have not come forward and the Egyptian authorities have not provided the addresses of their homes, according to the lawyer of the parents of Regeni, Alessandra Ballerini.

Lawyers and their clients now have 20 days to present evidence for their defense and requests to be questioned by investigators, according to ANSA, something that is not expected to happen, which would only leave Italy the option of continuing with a trial in absence.

Offering a diametrically opposite version, the Attorney General of Egypt, Hamada El Sawi, said in a statement at the end of November that the perpetrator of the crime "is still unknown" and announced that he will "temporarily close the investigation" while the relevant authorities continue to investigate the case.

Italian prosecutors have repeatedly accused their Egyptian colleagues of deliberately obstructing the investigations.

In his statement, El Sawi indicated that he does not support the decision of the Italian prosecutors, and expressed doubts about their conclusions, which he considered are not based on solid evidence.

The statement also pointed out that the suspects in the Italian investigation had acted individually and not in connection with any Egyptian security agency.

In addition, El Sawi again suggested that he has strong indications that it was in fact members of a gang who committed the murder of Regeni using false documents to incriminate the security forces.

A similar version was already rejected years ago by both Italian prosecutors and Egyptians themselves.

Cairo has presented over the years different explanations about the death of the young man considered inconsistent by the Italian side.

The parents of Regeni and Ballerini have strongly criticized the results of the Cairo investigation and the rejection of those from the Italian side.

"In these five years we have suffered injuries and abuses of all kinds by the Egyptian side, who kidnapped, tortured and killed a son, discredited him, and lied to us, insulted and deceived not only us, but the whole country", blamed in a statement of their own.

"Today, Egyptian prosecutors have the guts to express reservations about the work of our magistrates and investigators, and to consider the evidence gathered insufficient," they added, in what they considered an "absolute lack of respect for our judiciary and for our intelligence. ”.

After knowing the decision of the Italian prosecutors, the young man's parents have also approached the Italian authorities, and have asked for clarification as to why Regeni was not located during the nine days in which he remained missing. In addition, the father, Claudio Regeni, has asked that Rome again withdraw its ambassador to Egypt and has questioned the normalization of relations between the two countries, which have great shared economic interests, despite the lack of justice for the clarification of the death of his son.