Italian court convicts three Egyptian agents for kidnap of Giulio Regeni

The security officials were tried in absentia 10 years after the Italian student was found dead after being tortured.

Presiding Judge Paola Roja in Rome, Italy, September 28, 2026 [Yara Nardi/Reuters]

An Italian court has convicted three Egyptian security officials for their involvement in the kidnapping of student Giulio Regeni, who was later found dead.

The men were sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated kidnapping on Monday, while a fourth defendant was acquitted. They were tried in absentia and are unlikely to face extradition given the strained relations between Italy and Egypt as a result of the case.

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“We achieved this result despite what can be described as less than wholehearted cooperation from the Egyptian authorities,” Rome Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told reporters.

Regeni , a postgraduate student at the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge, disappeared in the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His body was later found on the side of a road with broken teeth, cigarette burns and broken bones. A post-mortem determined he had been tortured.

Human rights activists said his injuries were similar to those found on people who have been tortured in Egyptian security agency facilities.

People during a 2018 march and torchlight procession in memory of the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni in Rome, Italy [File: Andrea Ronchini/Getty Images]

Egypt has denied any involvement in his death. The four men, Major Magdi Sharif, from General Intelligence; police Colonel Hisham Helmy; Colonel Ather Kamal, a former head of investigations in Cairo; and former head of state security Major General Tarek Sabir, who was acquitted, have never responded to the accusations against them.

The judge dismissed the accusation of “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder” levelled against Sharif on Monday.

Conflicting investigations

Egyptian and Italian prosecutors initially investigated the case together. However, Egypt then said that members of a criminal gang were responsible for the murder and had been killed in a police shootout. It has subsequently maintained that Regeni’s killers are unknown.

Italian prosecutors said that Egyptian security officials kidnapped and tortured Regeni because of his academic research into trade unions. He had been researching union activities among street vendors in Cairo at the time he disappeared. They accused Egypt of undermining their investigation and refusing to disclose the men’s whereabouts.

Italian legislation allows for the prosecution of crimes ⁠committed abroad against Italian citizens. However, an earlier trial of the four men was suspended in 2021 after the judge questioned its legitimacy, given that the accused may not have known whether they had been charged.

This decision was dismissed in 2023 by Italy’s top court, which said the trial should not be impeded by Egypt’s failure to cooperate. Egypt denied it had refused to cooperate with Italian officials.

意大利学生在遭受酷刑后死亡 10 年后，这些安全官员被缺席审判。

主审法官保拉·罗哈 (Paola Roja) 于 2026 年 9 月 28 日在意大利罗马 [Yara Nardi/Reuters]

意大利一家法院判处三名埃及安全官员有罪，罪名是他们参与绑架学生朱利奥·雷杰尼，雷杰尼后来被发现死亡。

周一，三名男子因加重绑架罪被判处10年监禁，第四名被告被判无罪。他们均被缺席审判，鉴于此案导致意大利和埃及关系紧张，他们不太可能被引渡。

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“尽管埃及当局的合作不够尽心尽力，我们仍然取得了这一成果，”罗马首席检察官弗朗切斯科·洛·沃伊告诉记者。

雷杰尼是英国剑桥大学的研究生，2016年1月在埃及首都失踪。他的尸体后来在路边被发现，牙齿断裂，身上有烟头烫伤和骨折。尸检结果显示他曾遭受酷刑。

人权活动人士表示，他的伤势与在埃及安全机构设施中遭受酷刑的人所受的伤势相似。

2018 年，人们在意大利罗马举行游行和火炬游行，悼念意大利研究员朱利奥·雷杰尼。[图片：Andrea Ronchini/Getty Images]

埃及否认参与了他的死亡。四名涉案人员——埃及总情报局少校马格迪·谢里夫、警察上校希沙姆·赫尔米、开罗前调查局局长阿瑟·卡迈勒上校以及已被判无罪的前国家安全局局长塔里克·萨比尔少将——从未对针对他们的指控作出回应。

法官驳回了周一针对谢里夫提出的“合谋实施加重谋杀罪”的指控。

相互矛盾的调查

埃及和意大利检察官最初联合调查此案。然而，埃及随后表示，一个犯罪团伙成员应对这起谋杀案负责，并在与警方的枪战中被击毙。此后，埃及一直坚称雷杰尼的凶手身份不明。

意大利检察官称，埃及安全官员绑架并折磨雷杰尼，是因为他从事工会方面的学术研究。失踪时，他正在开罗街头小贩中调查工会活动。他们指责埃及阻挠他们的调查，并拒绝透露涉事人员的下落。

意大利法律允许对在国外针对意大利公民实施的犯罪行为提起诉讼。然而，此前对这四名男子的审判在2021年因法官质疑其合法性而被中止，理由是被告可能并不知道自己是否已被起诉。

2023年，意大利最高法院驳回了这一裁决，称埃及不合作不应妨碍审判。埃及否认曾拒绝与意大利官员合作。