By Crispian Balmer and Marco Roberti
ROME, Sept 28 (Reuters) – An Italian court on Monday convicted three Egyptian security officials in absentia for the 2016 kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, whose tortured body was found days after his disappearance in Cairo, but dismissed a murder charge against one defendant.
The three men were sentenced to 10 years in prison, while a fourth Egyptian official was acquitted of any involvement in the case, which severely strained diplomatic relations between the two countries. Italian authorities said they have been unable to determine the whereabouts of the accused.
Regeni, a 28-year-old postgraduate student at Britain’s Cambridge University, vanished in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016. His body was found almost a week later, with a post-mortem showing he had been extensively tortured.
Egypt said criminals were responsible while Italy said Regeni had fallen foul of the state because his research involved the politically sensitive subject of trade unions.
The four men were tried in absentia under Italian legislation allowing the prosecution of crimes committed abroad against Italian citizens. It is highly unlikely that those found guilty will ever be extradited to serve their prison terms.
COOPERATION ‘LESS THAN WHOLEHEARTED’
In a ruling read in court, a judge said Major Magdi Sharif of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, Cairo police investigations chief Colonel Ather Kamal and police Colonel Hisham Helmy were guilty of the “aggravated kidnapping” of Regeni.
The judge acquitted Major General Tarek Sabir, the former head of state security, of the same charge and also dismissed the accusation of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder against Sharif.
The four have never publicly responded to the accusations, and Egypt has denied any state involvement in Regeni’s death. The Egyptian embassy in Rome and Egyptian foreign ministry in Cairo did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for Sharif and 17 years and 6 months in jail for the other three.
“We achieved this result despite what can be described as less than wholehearted cooperation from the Egyptian authorities,” Rome Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said, adding he would review the ruling before deciding on a possible appeal.
REGENI FAMILY SEE VERDICT AS A VICTORY
Alessandra Ballerini, a lawyer for the Regeni family, welcomed Monday’s verdict.
“From today, people around the world can feel safer,” she said, adding: “Impunity can be defeated and democracies can place limits on arbitrary power.”
Relations between Italy and Egypt deteriorated sharply following the killing, but ties have gradually recovered in recent years despite continuing demands by Regeni’s family and rights groups for accountability.
The Rome court said the three men should pay damages to Regeni’s family and the Italian state. Ballerini said the government should demand payment and sever relations with Egypt.
Italian and Egyptian prosecutors initially investigated the case together, but the two sides later fell out and came to very different conclusions.
The Egyptians blamed the murder on a gang of criminals, who were subsequently killed in a shootout with police.
Italian prosecutors argued that Regeni was abducted and tortured by Egyptian security officials because of his academic research into independent unions, a sensitive subject in Cairo.
The trial opened in 2021 but was delayed by legal disputes over whether the defendants had been properly notified of the proceedings.
Italy tried on around 30 occasions, through diplomatic and government channels, to obtain the addresses of the suspects, but never received any answer, a prosecutor told the trial.
Italy’s top court later ruled that Egypt’s failure to cooperate should not prevent the case from moving forward, saying a foreign state’s refusal to assist an investigation could not be allowed to block accountability for torture.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer, Marco Roberti and Angelo Amante, editing by Alvise Armellini and Cynthia Osterman)
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