The family of slain Italian student Guilio Regeni appealed to Pope Francis to demand justice and raise their son’s murder case with Egyptian authorities during his upcoming visit to Cairo later in April.
Pope Francis is due to travel to Egypt for a two-day visit on April 28, and will meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the grand imam of al-Azhar mosque, and visit also the Cairo University campus.
"We are sure that the Pope cannot but mention Giulio during this trip and will share our concrete demand for the truth so that we can finally find peace," Giulio's mother, Paola, was quoted as saying during a press conference at the Italian Senate on April 3.
The Regeni family’s lawyer Alexandra Ballerini and spokesman for Amnesty International in Italy, Ricardo Nuri, participated in the press conference.
Ballerini said Giulio had been the victim of a “state murder” and that she had evidence two senior security officials were involved in his disappearance.
“Today we are in a position to say that the kidnapping, disappearance and death of Giulio Regeni directly involves the highest officers of Egyptian national security,” Ballerini said at the conference.
According to Italian newspaper Repubblica, Italian authorities have information about where Regeni was held captive and tortured, in addition to having the names of those who tortured Regeni to death. However, they do not have definite information about the names of those who ordered his torture.
This case has strained the close relationship between Italy and Egypt. Authorities in Rome often expressed frustration at the lack of progress on demanding justice for his murder.
At the press conference, Luigi Manconi, the Head of the Italian Senate’s Human Rights Committee, said Egypt made many promises to Italy that it would bring Regeni’s murderers to justice, but it has failed to keep its promises
The 28-year-old Cambridge PhD student disappeared on 25 January 2016. His corpse was found on the side of a road outside Cairo in February, showing marks of torture. Since then, family, friends and activists have persistently worked to shed light on the murder.
Egypt constantly denied allegations of any involvement in Regeni’s murder case. Egyptian authorities said they had looked into Regeni's activities before he was murdered, but concluded that he posed no threat to the security of the state.
Egyptian police in the early stages of the case said Regeni died in a traffic accident. They later claimed he was murdered by an anti-foreigner criminal gang.
