Egypt working ‘day and night’ to solve Italian student death

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Many Italians believe Regeni was abducted and killed by elements of the Egyptian security services

CAIRO - Egypt's president on Wednesday vowed to do everything he could to shed light on the fate of an Italian student found dead in Cairo bearing signs of having been tortured.

The corpse of Cambridge University PhD student Giulio Regeni, 28, was found dumped in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo in February, in a case that has strained ties between Italy and Egypt.

Egyptian authorities are working "day and night" to solve the crime, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in an interview with Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

"I promise you that we will do everything to shed light (on the case) and we will get to the truth," he said.

Addressing Regeni's family, he added: "We will work with the Italian authorities to bring to justice and punish the criminals that killed your son."

Sisi said that as a "father first and foremost", he understood the "pain and suffering that you feel at the loss of your son."

"I feel the shock and bitterness that has broken your heart," he said.

Regeni disappeared on January 25. Many Italians and Egyptian opposition figures believe he was abducted and killed by elements of the Egyptian security services, an allegation the authorities in Cairo have rejected as baseless.

His slaying while he was in Cairo doing research for his doctoral thesis has become a cause celebre amongst academics around the world and has turned the spotlight on what rights and opposition groups say are increasing abuses by security services under the military-backed government in Cairo.

Sisi did not respond directly to these suspicions but suggested that the murder was aimed, like terrorist attacks on tourist centres, "at hurting the Egyptian economy and isolating the country," -- comments that could be read as trying to blame Islamist groups.

Sisi added: "We face a terrorist threat against our tourist sites and the frontier with Libya, and we need to forge unity and support rather than create divisions with friendly countries like Italy."

Sisi also appeared to draw a parallel between the Regeni case and that of Adel Heikel, an Egyptian chef resident in Italy who went missing in Rome in October and whose whereabouts remain unknown.

"Such incidents cannot be allowed to destroy the relationship between our countries," Sisi said.

Italian leaders have warned Egypt repeatedly that the close ties between the two countries are on the line over what happened to Regeni and the European Parliament has also demanded full cooperation from Cairo.

Italian investigators are still awaiting the handover of key pieces of evidence, including Regeni's mobile phone records and the full results of an autopsy carried out by Egyptian medics after the discovery of his corpse.