Italy to try Egyptian officials again for 2016 torture, death of Italian student Giulio Regeni

Four high-level Egyptian security officials are going on trial in a Rome court, accused in the 2016 abduction, torture and slaying of an Italian doctoral student in Cairo.

The opening hearing marks the second time the four Egyptians went on trial in absentia: In 2021, a Rome judge halted the trial on the day it opened, arguing there was no certainty that the defendants had been officially informed that they were charged in the death of Giulio Regeni.

In September, Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled that the trial could go ahead even if the four hadn’t received official notification, because Egyptian authorities had refused to provide addresses for them.

Regeni’s body was found on a highway days after he disappeared in the Egyptian capital on Jan. 25, 2016. He was in Cairo to research union activities among street vendors as part of his doctoral thesis.

His mother has said his body was so mutilated by torture that she was only able to recognize the tip of his nose when she viewed it. Human rights activists have said the marks on his body resembled those resulting from widespread torture in Egyptian Security Agency facilities.