Fri 9 Apr 2021 15.30 EDT
Prosecutors in Italy have secretly recorded hundreds of conversations between human rights lawyers and their clients in cases related to allegations that NGOs operating rescue boats that saved thousands from drowning in the Mediterranean were complicit in people smuggling.
In a joint investigation with the Italian public broadcaster Rai News and the newspaper Domani, the Guardian has seen documents from prosecutors in Trapani, Sicily, detailing private conversations between human rights lawyers and their clients, including a priest, and with journalists in which confidential information was discussed regarding ongoing trials, private sources and legal defence strategies in upcoming hearings.
Italian prosecutors are seeking answers from four members of Egypt’s security forces over the abduction and murder of an Italian student in Cairo.
Giulio Regeni’s brutalised body was found by the side of a road on the outskirts of Egypt’s capital in February 2016, bearing signs of extensive torture. He disappeared nine days earlier and was last seen near a subway stop in Cairo.
Rome prosecutors said on Thursday a four-year investigation was formally closed with “unequivocal” proof of the four agents’ responsibility.
They now plan to press charges against Tariq Saber, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Uhsam Helmi, and Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif for aggravated kidnapping. Sharif is also being investigated for aggravated injury and murder.