Ali Abdel Aal, speaker of the Egyptian parliament, told a senior Italian parliamentarian on Friday that the Egyptian judiciary is being fully cooperative and transparent in the search of the killers of Italian student Giulio Regeni.
Abdel Aal made the comments on Friday night during talks with Fabrizio Cicchitto, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Italian parliament.
The Egyptian parliament speaker said it is important to maintain the distinction between judicial issues surrounding the Regeni investigation and other areas of cooperation between the two nations.
He stressed the importance of developing political, economic, military and security relations between Egypt and Italy, which face common challenges, including the struggles against illegal immigration and terrorism.
Abel Aal is visiting Rome to take part in meetings of the Executive Office of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian PhD student at Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo on January 25, 2016, the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising. Ten days later, his body was found along the side of the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, bearing the apparent signs of torture.
Egypt and Italy have been at loggerheads since the student's death. After months of disagreement over the conduct of investigations into his death, the Italian parliament voted to halt supplies of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, a move that Egypt said could harm biltateral co-operation in a number of miltiary and security fields.
Edited translation from MENA
