Rome court gives three Egyptian officials ten years each over Regeni abduction
A Rome court sentenced three Egyptian security officials to ten years each for the 2016 abduction of researcher Giulio Regeni in Cairo. A fourth defendant was acquitted. No murder conviction followed. The ruling in the trial held in absentia resolves part of a case that has strained relations between Italy and Egypt for years; it does not mean the convicted men are in Italian custody.
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Three receive ten years for abduction
A Rome court sentenced three Egyptian security officials to ten years each for the 2016 abduction of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Cairo. Reuters and Italian news agency ANSA reported that Major Magdi Sharif and Colonels Hisham Helmy and Ather Kamal were convicted. A fourth defendant, former state security chief Tarek Sabir, was acquitted. The defendants were tried in absentia. The verdict establishes a kidnapping conviction for three men in a case that began a decade ago.[1], [2]
No murder conviction followed
The court did not uphold the charge that Sharif conspired to commit aggravated murder. ANSA likewise reported that the three convictions were for abduction alone. Regeni’s body was found days later with signs of extensive torture, but the court did not convict anyone of murder in this trial. Reuters said prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for Sharif and terms of 17 years and six months for the other defendants. The verdict was narrower than those requests and cleared Sabir of the kidnapping charge.[1], [2]
Cairo and Rome have differed over the case
Regeni, a Cambridge University doctoral researcher studying independent trade unions in Egypt, disappeared on January 25, 2016. Italian prosecutors argued that Egyptian security personnel abducted him while he was conducting that research. Egypt denied state involvement, and Egyptian investigators blamed a criminal gang for his death. Those competing accounts are separate from the kidnapping convictions reached by the Rome court. Chief prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said Egyptian authorities had offered limited cooperation. Because the defendants were tried in absentia, the sentences do not mean the three men are in Italian custody.[1]
