Regeni case: three Egyptian 007s convicted for kidnapping, general acquitted

More than 10 years have passed, 3,890 days to be precise, since the body of 28-year-old researcher Giulio Regeni was found lifeless in Cairo, Egypt, with clear signs of violence and torture: it was February 3, 2016. It had been seized on January 25. And today, 28 September, the Assize Court of Rome sentenced Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif and colonels Uhsam Helmi and Athar Kamel Mohamed to 10 years, while the fourth defendant, General Tariq Sabir, was acquitted. The three Egyptian 007s were only convicted for the kidnapping of Regeni, which took place in Cairo on 25 January 2016: the judges dropped the murder charge. The 4 never appeared in court and have been formally untraceable and untraceable for years, due to the lack of Egyptian cooperation. For one of them, Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, believed to be the man who actually killed the young Italian, prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco had asked for a life sentence. The judges also ordered an immediately enforceable provisional amount to be paid to the convicted persons of 200 thousand euros each for Giulio Regeni's father and mother, 100 thousand euros for his sister Irene and the sum of 150 thousand euros for the presidency of the Council of Ministers. The three Egyptian 007s were also sentenced to compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages in favor of the Regeni family and the Presidency of the Council, to be settled in civil court.

Regeni family lawyer: "Our faith in justice has been well placed"

"It is clear that we will have to read the reasons, but today we know that our faith in justice has been well placed. From today all citizens of the world can feel safer, from tonight all the regimes in the world and their apparatus, their uniforms, will be forced to remember that people's dignity is inviolable just like their bodies", said the lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, lawyer for Regeni's family after the sentence. "Truth and justice must not lend themselves to compromise, not only to protect the legitimate expectations of family members, but to safeguard the founding principles of our constitutional system. These are the words of our president Sergio Mattarella in the message sent to the Regeni family for the tenth anniversary of Giulio's passing - he continues - These words today found concreteness in a sentence issued in the name of the Italian people which constitutes a defense for all the Giulios and Giulias of the world. And it is this defense that we have always asked for and invoked in the beyond the individual convictions, it is clear that the evidentiary system supported by the prosecutor's office has passed the scrutiny of the Court".

Legal Regeni: "Government take note of the sentence and break relations with Egypt"

"Now our government will also have to take note of it, claim compensation for the damage as requested by the State Attorney's Office and break relations with a country that, far from being safe, tortures and even kills the citizens of the so-called friendly States - continued Ballerini - This, as Calamandrei would say, is the joy and faith of the jurist and it is also ours and that of all the people who have accompanied and supported us in this tiring path of justice. We will always be grateful to the prosecutor's office and the investigators for their tireless work and to Giulio who achieved things today too".

Lo Voi: "The prosecutor's prosecution system held up"

"We will have to wait for the reasons to be able to have the complete picture of the reasoning of the Court of Assizes, I think we can say that the substantial part of the prosecution system has held up", also said the prosecutor of Rome, Francesco Lo Voi. "There were three convictions out of four even if not for all crimes for an activity that had been carried out by people linked to the Egyptian State. We managed to achieve this result despite an unprofitable collaboration on the part of the Egyptian authorities. We are satisfied - he added - for having brought this out proceeding from the quagmire in which it had ended up. We also succeeded by activating the Constitutional Court to proceed and carry out a trial before an autonomous and independent assize court in whose presence even the absent defendants were excellently represented".

The sit-in outside the court

In the morning, outside the court in Rome, several protesters and activists gathered who - with banners and placards - asked for the truth for Giulio Regeni. Also participating in the sit-in were PD secretary Elly Schlein and dem deputy Gianni Cuperlo, who spent a few moments with the parents and sister of the researcher kidnapped and killed in Egypt.

See also

Regeni case, requests for a life sentence and 3 sentences of 17 and a half years

Colaiocco: "Historic sentence, the law has responded to the horror of torture"

"It is a historic sentence that confirms the reconstruction of the Prosecutor's Office: the Court in sentencing the three defendants who kidnapped Giulio Regeni, stated that everything that happened to him can be attributed to the Egyptian security apparatus. From the reading of the device it seems to emerge that the elements collected in the investigations were not considered sufficient to specifically trace, within the context of the apparatus, the murder in which the kidnapping culminated to Major Sharif. This was evidently due to the wall of silence of Egypt", commented the deputy prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco, head of the investigation into the kidnapping and death of Giulio Regeni. "The thoughts now are with Giulio and his family. Today a Court found the responsibility of three officials of the Egyptian apparatus for what was done to him and this is a result that has enormous weight. Tonight in this chamber, we saw what it means to live in a democracy: responding to the horror of torture with the force of law".

Pm Colaiocco: "Egypt has decided to cover Regeni's tormentors"

Last June 23, in the hearing in which he formulated the request for sentences for the four defendants, prosecutor Colaiocco spoke of "a procedural truth built through documentary evidence, declarative evidence, technical-scientific evidence, external feedback, independent convergences, trial verifications". The trial was forcefully desired by the prosecutors of Piazzale Clodio, against "the silence and lies" of Egypt which "decided to cover up and protect the torturers", providing convenient versions or "outright fakes" and covering up evidence. For the prosecutors what is being judged "is not the simple suppression of a human life", but "the methodical, cold, organized exercise of violence on a defenseless man" and ""the kidnapping of a person deprived of any guarantee".

The motive

The motive, according to the Prosecutor's Office, lies in Regeni's "mistaken perception of hostile intelligence activity". "The kidnapping and subsequent torture are placed, in this perspective, as tools used to obtain information that the victim was not able to provide. The reconstruction of the Egyptian apparatus proves, in light of the elements acquired, to be radically unfounded. The very methods of torture, in their duration and brutality, confirm the persecutory dynamic, up to the tragic final outcome. What emerges is a competitive responsibility with a progressive structure, in which each defendant occupies a specific functional role", said the prosecutors in this summer's indictment.

The 007 defense claims that terrorist groups are behind the murder

The defenders of the four accused 007s from Cairo have always maintained that Regeni was never "kidnapped by members of National Security, because there was no interest on Al Sisi's part in ruining relations with Italy". The affair, they claim, was instead "the work of terrorist groups that operated in Egypt in those years to hinder Italy's energy policy".

See also

Giulio Regeni, on Sky "All the evil in the world"