An Egyptian activist holds a poster calling for justice in the case of Giulio Regeni in Cairo, Egypt, April 15, 2016.
REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
On December 10, Human Rights Day, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called for international cooperation and an exchange of expertise without “dictation or claim of perfection that hasn’t and will never be attained by any party.” The same day, Rome’s chief prosecutor announced she was charging four ranking Egyptian National Security Agency officers with responsibility for the abduction, torture, and murder of an Italian graduate student, Giulio Regeni, in Cairo in early 2016.
Egypt’s understanding of “cooperation” has been on full display pretty much ever since Regeni’s badly mutilated body was discovered almost five years ago, nine days after he had been “disappeared” in downtown Cairo. On November 30, following a final meeting with visiting Italian prosecutors, Egypt announced it was officially closing its investigation into Regeni’s death. “The perpetrator of the student’s murder remains unknown,” the Egyptian public prosecution statement said.