Former premier Giuseppe Conte, the
leader of the opposition populist Five-Star Movement (M5S)
party, said on Tuesday that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
el-Sisi has failed to cooperate in the case of Giulio Regeni,
testifying at a hearing of the trial in absentia of four
Egyptian security officials accused of torturing the Italian
student to death in January-February 2016.
El-Sisi has expressed "an apparent willingness in words, never a
refusal" to help in the investigation, "but there has never been
an actual cooperation", Conte said while testifying at the trial
in Rome against the four officials.
Regeni, 28, a Friuli-born Cambridge University doctoral
researcher into Caito street unions, was allegedly abducted and
tortured to death by National Security General Tariq Sabir and
his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and
Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, who are not
attending the trial after Egypt refused to notify them of the
proceedings.
He was allegedly targeted because of the politically sensitive
nature of his research, after a street seller union chief
fingered him as an alleged spy.
The student's parents Claudio Regeni and Claudia Deffendi said
earlier this month that they had called el-Sisi and his son
Mahmoud to testify, adding that el-Sisi's presence at the trial
could also represent an opportunity for them to be given back
their son's personal effects, as promised.
However, their attorney Alessandra Ballerini on Tuesday said
Sisi refused the notification to testify at a hearing scheduled
Wednesday.
"It would be splendid for someone to take responsibility after
nine years", said Ballerini.
"Testifying is mandatory and, if he doesn't want to, someone
should in theory go pick him up.
"Unfortunately, it won't happen", she said.
Speaking at the hearing on Tuesday, Conte said he held several
meetings with el-Sisi when he was premier and recalled a
"particularly tense bilateral meeting" in 2018 in Palermo.
Conte said there was no occasion in which he didn't "insistently
request cooperation from Egypt, which objectively nearly didn't
exist".
Conte served as premier in two different governments from June
2018 to January 2021.
Egypt has in the past advanced differing explanations for Giulio
Regeni's death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff, and
abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was
wiped out after Regeni's documents were allegedly planted in
their lair.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome's
temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo.
Successive Italian governments have been criticized by Regeni's
parents for continuing to cooperate with Cairo on deals ranging
from migration to oil finds and arms sales including two
Italian-made frigates.
El-Sisi has repeatedly promised to help Italy get to the truth
about the murder.
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