Egyptian Security Officer Allegedly Admitted to Dismembering Italian Scholar, Witness Testifies

ROME: A witness testified on Thursday at the Rome trial of four Egyptian security officers, accused in absentia of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Giulio Regeni, that one of the suspects admitted to “cutting up” the Italian doctoral student.

According to Ansa News Agency, the witness recounted hearing Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdel Sharif make the admission during a conversation in a Nairobi restaurant in September 2017. The witness reported that Sharif referenced an Italian academic suspected of being a CIA and Mossad agent, stating, “He was a problem because he was popular among ordinary people. We finally caught him: we cut him up, we destroyed him. I hit him.”

Sharif, along with National Security General Tariq Sabir and two other officers, is facing charges related to the death of Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University researcher. The trial is proceeding without their presence, as Egypt has refused to notify the defendants of the legal proceedings.

Regeni was allegedly tortured to death between J
anuary 25 and February 3, 2016, after being accused by Egyptian security officers of espionage. This accusation reportedly stemmed from information provided by the leader of a street union, an organization in a politically sensitive sector of Egypt.