Ibn Zohr University

Faculty of Humanities
English Studies
Agadir

Mrs.BENNOUDI

Italian-Egyptian tensions grow

Pressure is mounting on Rome to reconsider its relations with Egypt following the brutal
murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, reports Ahmed Morsy
The case of Italian PhD candidate Giulio Regeni hasn’t been closed and the cooperation with
Italy in investigating the case will continue,” said Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri at a press
conference held on Tuesday with his Burundian counterpart Alain Aimé Nyamitwe.

Shoukri described cooperation with Italy over the case as “exceptional” and said Egypt is
ready for “continuing the cooperation of joint investigative bodies”.
“The Egyptian side will deliver the information needed to the Italian side because there is a
desire for transparency. It will, however, take a long time,” Shoukri said, pointing out that the
investigation into the assassination of Prosecutor-General Hisham Barakat took almost a year.

Shoukri said that during last week’s visit of an Egyptian judicial delegation to Rome the
Italian authorities made many requests. “The Egyptian delegation responded to all these
requests except one, which was rejected for constitutional and legal considerations,” he said.

On 6 April a delegation headed by Deputy Public Prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman, and

including police officers involved in the Regeni case, travelled to Rome to brief the Italian
authorities on the latest results of their investigation into the murder of Regeni, whose
mutilated body was found in Cairo in February.

“The Italian authorities wanted access to the call log of a huge number of citizens, which
could reach a million, who were around student Regeni’s house, the area in which he
disappeared and the area where the police found his body,” Suleiman said at a press
conference in Cairo on Saturday. “Egypt rejected the request, which violates the Egyptian
constitution.”
The constitution, Suleiman insisted, prohibits tracking any forms of communication used by
citizens who are not part of ongoing investigations.
Italian investigators have also requested CCTV footage from the area surrounding Regeni’s
apartment in Dokki. The Egyptian delegation was unable to deliver the footage, which it said
had been auto-deleted.