ROME (Reuters) – An Italian judge on Tuesday ordered four senior members of Egypt’s security services to stand trial over their suspected role in the disappearance and murder of student Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016, a legal source said.
Regeni, a postgraduate student at Britain’s Cambridge University, disappeared in the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His body was found almost a week later and a post mortem examination showed he had been tortured before his death.
Italian prosecutors say their investigation showed that four Egyptian officials were responsible for the “aggravated kidnapping” of Regeni, while one of the four was also involved in a “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder”.
Egyptian police and officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Regeni’s disappearance and killing.
Presiding over a preliminary hearing, an Italian judge agreed that there was sufficient evidence to indict the four and ordered the trial to open on Oct. 14, the legal source said.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Gavin Jones)
