Italian court convicts three Egyptian agents for kidnap of Giulio Regeni

An Italian court has convicted three Egyptian security officials for their involvement in the kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, who was later found dead.

The men were sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping on Monday, while a fourth defendant was acquitted. They were tried in absentia and are unlikely to face extradition given the strained relations between Italy and Egypt as a result of the case.
“We achieved this result despite what can be described as less than wholehearted cooperation from the Egyptian authorities,” Rome Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told reporters.

Regeni, a postgraduate student at the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge, disappeared in the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His body was later found on the side of a road with broken teeth, cigarette burns and broken bones. A post-mortem determined he had been tortured.

Human rights activists said his injuries were similar to those found on people who have been tortured in Egyptian security agency facilities.