The Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office delivered its closing speech in the trial of four members of the Egyptian security services accused of the abduction, torture and murder of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher killed in Cairo in January 2016. The defendants are not present in court, as Egypt has never cooperated with the Italian judicial authorities.
‘A methodical, cold-blooded and organised act of violence against a defenceless man’
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco opened the prosecution’s case. “What is being judged here is not merely the taking of a human life,” he began. “What is being judged here is the methodical, cold-blooded and organised use of violence against a defenceless man.” On 25 January 2016, Colaiocco explained, Regeni “unwittingly entered a grey area where the rule of law ceases to exist”. From that moment, according to the prosecution, “he was no longer a person”, but “a kidnapped body”, “a subject over whom absolute power could be exercised”.
Men of State
The most striking point of the prosecution’s case concerns the nature of the perpetrators of the crime. ‘It was not common criminals who carried out all this, nor were they members of the underworld,’ said Colaiocco. ‘They were men of the State, belonging to the security apparatus’: precisely those to whom a State entrusts the legitimate use of force. When this force “becomes an instrument of torture”, he added, “the very idea of a civilised legal system is undermined” and “the principle that no power can exist without accountability”.
Colaiocco has also definitively ruled out the so-called ‘British lead’: all the evidence gathered regarding alleged British involvement ‘has been thoroughly investigated, verified and scrutinised from every possible angle’, without ‘any useful evidence’ coming to light. Regeni ‘was not a spy’, the prosecutor reiterated.
Next will be the turn of the civil parties. “They are extremely excited and full of anticipation,” said Alessandra Bellerini, the lawyer representing Giulio Regeni’s parents, as she arrived in court. “It is now more than just confidence; it is a matter of faith.”
The Regeni family’s lawyers: all the evil in the world cannot go unpunished
“All the evil in the world cannot go unpunished, and we must answer the most painful of questions: why? Why him? Whoever restrained, tortured and killed Giulio has destroyed his dignity and that of us all.” So said Alessandra Ballerini, the lawyer representing Giulio Regeni’s parents as civil parties, during her closing address at the trial of the four Egyptian intelligence agents accused of the abduction and murder of the Friulian researcher, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Egypt ten years ago. “No one should ever have to suffer what Giulio suffered. Today we have the chance to heal wounds that are, in part, incurable and to restore trust among citizens who believe in our values, in the sanctity of the human body and in the inviolability of dignity,” stressed lawyer Ballerini, who, in concluding her closing speech, endorsed the requests made by Deputy Public Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco and Public Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi, who had called for a life sentence for Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif and 17 years and 6 months for Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Uhsam Helmi and Tareq Sabyr.
Provisional compensation for catastrophic damage
With regard to the harm suffered by the Regeni family, the other lawyer representing the civil claimants, Mr Giacomo Satta, has called for compensation, the amount of which is to be determined by the judges of the Court of Assizes, as well as provisional compensation for the ‘catastrophic harm’ suffered by Giulio, the victim of a crime against humanity.
The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, through the State Legal Service – as part of the trial in the Regeni case – has sought damages of two million euros from the four Egyptian intelligence agents accused of the abduction, torture and murder of the Italian researcher. During its address to the court during the ongoing trial in Rome, the State Legal Service noted that ‘this crime has deeply affected the Italian community’ and that the defendants ‘have infringed upon the rights of Italian citizens to freedom, even whilst abroad. Constitutionally guaranteed rights have been violated’.
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