The Court of Assizes of Rome convicted three Egyptian 007s for the death of Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016. The fourth accused secret service agent was acquitted.
Ten years is the sentence inflicted on the 3 agents of the Egyptian secret services: Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif - for whom the prosecutor's office had requested a life sentence - and colonels Uhsam Helmi and Athar Kamel Mohamed. The fourth accused, General Tariq Sabir, was acquitted.
The three Egyptian 007s were only convicted for the kidnapping of Giulio Regeni. The judges in fact dropped the murder charge, recognizing the charges of kidnapping for those convicted.
The sentence comes 3,890 days after Giulio Regeni was found dead in Egypt, with evident signs of violence and torture on his body. Today, the first procedural "truth" regarding that death arrived with the sentence of the first Court of Assizes of Rome called to decide on the request made by the Prosecutor's Office against the four defendants, all belonging to the Cairo secret services
"It is clear that we will have to read the reasons, but today we know that our faith in justice has been well placed - said the lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, lawyer for Regeni's family -. From today all citizens of the world can feel safer, from tonight all the regimes of the world and their apparatus, their uniforms, will be forced to remember that the dignity of people is inviolable as well as their bodies".
"This trial does not deliver an intuitive or emotional truth - the representative of the prosecution stated in the courtroom -. It delivers a procedural truth constructed through documentary evidence; declarative evidence; technical-scientific evidence; external feedback; independent convergences; trial verifications".
"We are here today despite this very tiring, uphill obstacle course. Thanks to everyone, to the media escort and to the yellow people. Few would have bet that we would be at a trial and then at a sentence. This is already a victory but we are not satisfied", said the lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, lawyer of the Regeni family. "Everything that the Egyptian regime could do to prevent this process, it did, however this family is resistant. The Regenis did it for us and if today our rights are worth a little more it is thanks to them", he added. "It doesn't concern us, because ours is a democracy: there is the separation of powers provided for by our Constitution", Ballerini replied to those who asked her about the recent visit of the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, to Egypt with President Al Sisi.
Schlein also at the sit-in outside the Rome court
The secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, participated in the sit-in outside the judicial citadel of Rome on the occasion of the final hearing of the trial for the death of Giulio Regeni. Schlein spent a few moments with the parents and sister of the researcher kidnapped and killed in Egypt in 2016. With Regeni's family there were also many activists of the "yellow people" with the banner reading "truth for Giulio Regeni".
