Egypt's Foreign Ministry has reacted angrily to news that human rights NGO Amnesty International has been working behind the scenes to support Italy in its battle with Egypt over the death of PhD student Giulio Regeni early this year.
In a statement on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid denounced Amnesty for seeking to undermine Egypt, using new and devious tactics that represent a departure from its usual practice of stating criticisms in periodic reports.
Abu Zeid was responding to Italian media reports that Amnesty sent a letter to Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni on June 20 accusing Egyptian authorities of reluctance to cooperate in investigations into the student's death.
Amnesty also praised Italy's decision to withdraw its ambassador from Cairo and to link his return to the discovery of the student's killers.
In Wednesday's statement, Abu Zeid expressed his amazement at Cambridge University for refusing to cooperate with Regeni's family and failing to provide the family's lawyers with any information that might help investigations.
He said that Amnesty's failure to criticize Cambridge demonstrates the NGO's partiality and political bias on the issue.
Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian student working on his PhD at Cambridge University, disappeared on January 25, the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Regeni was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, and conducted research on independent trade unions.
Ten days later, Regeni’s body was found along the side of the Cairo-Alexandria desert road, his body bearing signs of torture, according to the chief prosecutor for accidents in South Giza.
Egyptian authorities have been conducting investigations into the student's death, but have so far failed to identify his killers. However, security forces claim that they recovered his passport and other belongings at an apartment during a raid in search of a gang of robbers.
Italian and Egyptian investigators have been cooperating on the case for months, but Italy has complained that Egypt has been reluctant to share certain types of evidence, including data on telephone calls in the area of Regeni's disappearance.
Edited translation from MENA
