This week the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a request from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conclude a political agreement between Rome and Cairo resolving the crisis of the killing of Italian scholar Giulio Regeni. Cairo shall pledge to express real and honest political will to bring the accused to justice and to provide all the evidence and information related to the case before judicial and diplomatic cooperation between the two countries is resumed to resolve the crisis.

The Italian request comes in response to an invitation released by the new Egyptian Public Prosecutor Hamad al-Sawy to the Italian Public Prosecutor about the necessity of resuming cooperation according to Rome’s conditions.

Last Wednesday Luigi Di Maio, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said during a joint hearing before the committee of foreign affairs of both of the parliament and congress in Rome: “The invitation will not be received with enthusiasm.” 

He expressed hope that there would be a meeting between the Italian and Egyptian investigation teams after a break of a year to resume judicial cooperation on the condition that Cairo intends to bring the accused to justice.                                                                                          

Cooperation was fully suspended between the two parties for a year after the Egyptian Public Prosecution insisted on not giving the Italian Public Prosecution the details of its investigations into the gang that allegedly kidnapped Regeni, the story but forward by the police. 

On 25 January 2016 Regeni disappeared in Cairo and his body appeared five days later with signs that he had been tortured. Unofficial accusations have circulated about the involvement of top security officials close to the Egyptian president.