Regeni Trial Suspended as Pleas Go to Top Court

Rome: The Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian security officials accused of torturing to death Italian student Giulio Regeni in January-February 2016 was suspended Thursday after the court referred a question of constitutionality raised by the defence to the Constitutional Court. The crux of the matter concerns the right to defence and the appointment of expert witnesses, judicial sources said.

According to Ansa News Agency, the judges deemed the issue “not manifestly unfounded” and “relevant” to the outcome of the case. The 28-year-old student’s half-naked body was found in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway on February 3, 2016, a week after he disappeared on the Cairo metro on January 25.

Regeni, a Friuli-born Cambridge University doctoral researcher into Cairo 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 wrongly fingered him as a spy.