Egyptian detectives investigating the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni have agreed to extend the investigation after pressure from Rome, according to Angelino Alfano, the Italian interior minister.
The Italian government had objected to Egyptian authorities’ insistence on Thursday that they had identified a criminal gang linked to the murder of Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University graduate student, after killing four gang members and finding the student’s passport in one suspect’s apartment.
Italian media and western diplomatic sources in Cairo had voiced suspicions that Egyptian security services kidnapped Regeni and tortured him to death.
“It is important that, in the face of our emphasis on the quest for truth, the Egyptians changed tack in a few hours and told us that their investigations are continuing,” Alfano told the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday.
“Our investigators should be directly involved, participating in questioning and evidence gathering … Our input is essential.
“I repeat to Giulio’s parents and to the Italian public that the Italian government will get the name of the murderers.”
Regeni disappeared in central Cairo on 25 January. His body was found nine days later on the side of a motorway, badly mutilated and showing signs of torture.
According to government sources, Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, promised the student’s parents that Rome would continue to put pressure onEgypt to establish the facts of his death.
Regeni’s parents have previously told the Italian press they were “injured and bitter” at the Egyptian authorities’ latest attempt to explain their son’s murder.
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