Nearly a decade after the brutal death of 28-year-old Italian researcher Giulio Regeni sent shockwaves across the international community, an Italian court has handed down a long-awaited verdict in a case that has strained bilateral relations for years. On Monday, a Rome court convicted three members of Egypt’s security forces of aggravated kidnapping, sentencing each to 10 years in prison. The defendants were tried in absentia and have consistently denied all charges against them, while a fourth Egyptian official standing trial in the same case was acquitted.
Regeni, a Cambridge University PhD candidate, disappeared in January 2016 while conducting field research on Egypt’s independent trade unions, a politically sensitive topic in the country. Just days after he went missing, his extensively tortured, mutilated body was discovered in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo. An official autopsy later confirmed he had endured prolonged abuse, including repeated beatings with fists, kicks, sticks and clubs, and ultimately died from a broken neck. In a 2018 testimony before the Italian parliament, Regeni’s mother recalled that his body was so disfigured she could only identify him by the tip of his nose.
From the outset of the investigation, Italian and Egyptian authorities reached starkly opposing conclusions about the circumstances of Regeni’s death. Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied any state involvement in the researcher’s abduction and killing, instead attributing his death to a range of alternative causes including a run-in with criminal gangs, a fatal car accident, botched drug deal, or failed robbery. But Rome-based prosecutors, who ultimately launched their own independent prosecution after the joint investigation collapsed, concluded that Egypt’s national security agency orchestrated the kidnapping.
The four defendants in the trial were General Tariq Sabir, Colonel Usham Helmi, Colonel Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif. Of the four, only General Sabir was acquitted, while the three colonels and major received their conviction and sentence on Monday.
The road to this verdict has stretched on for years. The trial was initially scheduled to begin in 2021, but was delayed after prosecutors raised concerns that they had not been able to locate the defendants to formally serve charges. It was only in September 2023 that Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled the trial could proceed, clearing the final legal hurdle for the case to move forward.
As the guilty verdict was read out in the Rome courtroom, Regeni’s family members and their supporters, many wearing the yellow t-shirts and badges that have become the symbol of their 10-year campaign for justice, stood in silence. Legal representatives for the family and Rome’s chief prosecutor both welcomed the outcome, framing the conviction as a landmark victory against impunity for abuses of power.
“From today, people around the world can feel safer,” said Alessandra Ballerini, the lead lawyer for the Regeni family. “Impunity can be defeated and democracies can place limits on arbitrary power.”
While extradition of the three convicted men to Italy to serve their sentences is widely considered unlikely, legal analysts and diplomatic observers note the conviction is almost certain to reignite long-simmering diplomatic tensions between Rome and Cairo, two countries with deep economic and political ties that have repeatedly been tested by the Regeni case over the past decade.