According to Giulio Regeni’s family attorney Alessandra Ballerini, the four Egyptian officers suspected of killing the Italian doctoral student have been told to appear before a court in Rome. The Egyptian officers accused of kidnapping, torturing, and killing Regeni are Sherif Magdy Ibrahim, Tariq Ali Saber, Hossam El-Din Helmy Mohamed, and Aser Kamal Mohamed.

Last February, 15 human rights groups called Italy to show a firm stance on the Regeni case by suspending all police and military cooperation programs with Egypt. Last January, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, on a visit to Egypt, raised the case of Regeni.

According to official statements from both sides, Tajani discussed the case of Regeni, an Italian graduate student who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Cairo in 2016, and the case of Patrick George Zaki, an Egyptian activist who was studying in Bologna before being detained for nearly two years in Egypt. Tajani tweeted, “I asked for and received assurances of strong cooperation in the cases of Regeni and Zaki.” In a joint press conference with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, he said that Cairo is ready to remove barriers to solve the two cases.