Today, Monday (September 28, 2026), a court in Rome issued ten-year prison sentences against three Egyptian security officers after convicting them in the case of kidnapping and torturing Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, in a prominent judicial development within a decade-long process to demand accountability for those responsible for his murder.
The court did not convict the defendants of the murder, and it also acquitted a fourth defendant of the charges against him.
The Egyptian authorities have not commented on the ruling yet, while they previously denied any connection between the Egyptian state and Regeni’s killing.
The four officers were tried in absentia based on Italian legislation that allows perpetrators of crimes against Italian citizens to be tried outside the country.
On the other hand, the defendants did not issue any public response to the accusations, while the Egyptian authorities repeatedly denied any state involvement in Regeni’s killing.
Conviction of three names and acquittal of a fourth
The judge said in the merits of the ruling that Major Magdy Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif, from the General Intelligence Service, Colonel Hisham Helmy, and Colonel Aser Kamal, the former head of the Cairo Facilities Investigations, participated in planning a “kidnapping accompanied by serious physical injuries” of the Italian researcher.
On the other hand, the court acquitted Major General Tariq Saber, the former head of the National Security Service, of the same charge, and also dropped the charge of “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder” from Sharif.
Last June, public prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for Sharif as, in their estimation, the actual perpetrator of the murder, and 17 years and six months in prison for each of the other defendants.
A disappearance in Cairo and a tragic end
Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian researcher and PhD student at the University of Cambridge, disappeared in Cairo on 25 January 2016 while conducting research on independent trade unions. Nine days later, his body was found on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital, and, according to Italian investigators, it bore signs of severe torture.
Investigators believe Regeni was kidnapped and killed after being wrongly suspected of being a foreign spy.
According to Regeni's family lawyer, a post-mortem examination showed that five of his teeth were broken, 15 of his bones were broken, and letters were engraved on his body. His mother later said her son was so disfigured that she could only recognize him by "the tip of his nose."
Prosecutor: We got the case out of the impasse
Silence fell on Regeni's family and supporters inside the courtroom when the verdict was pronounced on Monday, while those present wore yellow T-shirts and badges that have become a symbol of their campaign to demand truth and justice.
For his part, Rome's chief prosecutor, Francesco Lo Foy, welcomed the ruling, telling reporters: "We achieved this result despite what could be described as cooperation that did not reach the level hoped for on the part of the Egyptian authorities." He added: "We are satisfied that we have brought the case out of the impasse it was about to plunge into."
A trial marred by obstacles and postponements
This is the second trial in Italy of Egyptian security personnel in connection with the case, after the first trial was canceled in 2021 due to the inability to officially inform the accused of the judicial procedures.
The case witnessed repeated delays as a result of the defendants remaining in Egypt and not appearing before the Italian court.
However, a ruling issued by the Italian Constitutional Court in September 2023 allowed the proceedings to resume in absentia, and paved the way for the hearings to begin in Rome despite ongoing disputes over notification of the accused.
The court also rejected the defense team's request to drop the case on the grounds that the charges were brought against the defendants collectively without specifying the actions attributed to each one of them.
A decade of disputes between Rome and Cairo
Over the past ten years, the Regeni case has become one of the most sensitive issues in Italian-Egyptian relations.
While Italian prosecutors confirmed that members of the Egyptian security services kidnapped the Italian researcher, detained him, tortured him, and killed him, Cairo consistently denied any state involvement and rejected the results of the Italian investigation.
Italian judges accused the Egyptian authorities of withholding basic information requested through international judicial cooperation channels, an accusation rejected by Egypt.
In 2021, an Italian parliamentary committee said that the Egyptian security apparatus was responsible for Regeni’s killing, accusing the Egyptian judiciary of “obstructive and openly hostile” behavior by refraining from revealing the whereabouts of the accused.
On the other hand, the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, Counselor Hamada Al-Sawy, announced in December 2020 that the four defendants were acquitted of responsibility for Regeni’s murder and that the case was closed. The Egyptian side attributed the cause of Regeni's killing to a criminal gang, whose members were later killed by the police in an exchange of fire.
Potential diplomatic repercussions
Although the extradition of the accused to Italy seems unlikely, the new rulings may return tension to relations between the two countries.
Italy may also demand that Egypt pay compensation amounting to two million euros that the Italian government had requested, based on the fact that the convicts are public officials.
Egypt is an important partner of Italy in the Middle East region, but over the past years the case of Giulio Regeni has remained a prominent point of contention that has cast a shadow over bilateral relations between the two countries.
Reuters, AFP, AP
