Egypt 'finds killers of Italian student Giulio Regeni'

[DJKeefy]

Egypt says it has found the criminal gang who killed Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo earlier this year.

Police found a bag belonging to the student during a raid on a flat in which all the members of the gangs were killed, the interior ministry said.

The gang specialised in abducting foreigners while posing as policemen, it added.

Giulio Regeni's body was found beside a road on the western outskirts of Cairo, a week after he had gone missing.

His body showed signs of torture.


"The security forces on Thursday managed to track down a gang in New Cairo that used to pose as policemen. It specialised in abducting foreigners and robbing them," the ministry said in a statement.

"There was an exchange of fire with the police and all members of the gang were killed."


*** Speculation ***

Mr Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student at the department of politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge, was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

He is reported to have been carrying out research on trade unions and labour rights in Egypt - a sensitive topic in recent years.

He disappeared after leaving his Cairo home to meet on a friend on the evening of 25 January, which was the fifth anniversary of the start of the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak, when there was a heavy police presence in Cairo.

When his body was found, prosecutors said there were bruises, knife wounds and cigarette burns all over his body suggesting he had suffered a "slow death".

Rights groups and opposition figures speculated that he was killed by members of the Egyptian security forces - claims Cairo had strongly denied.

Italy's government has been putting pressure on Egypt to find those responsible for Mr Regeni's death.


Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35897484

[DJKeefy]

Sounds like a right coverup - How appropriate they killed all suspects, now who will know the truth.

[Dusak]

So, what a relief for those nearest and dearest. All over the world the police get blamed for actions that had nothing to do with them. They are an easy target, just like the innocent victims of terror. What used to happen within peoples living memories today does not necessarily mean that they still carry on happening year by year. Fortunately they are all brown bread, thus saving the country countless thousands on investigation and prosecution costs. I'll have to sign off now as I have developed cramp in my tongue.

[Chris]

Check out the report on this given by The Guardian Newspaper UK:

Egyptian police claim to have shot dead four men responsible for the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, sparking confusion and outrage among those who believe that evidence in the case points to a cover-up of state involvement.

In a statement provided to the Guardian late on Thursday night, as well as posted on the ministry of interior Facebook page, Egyptian officials said police had targeted four men “specialised in impersonating policemen, kidnapping foreigners and stealing their money” and “in an exchange of fire between police forces and the men, all the gang members were killed”.

Regeni’s body was discovered showing signs of torture on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road on 3 February, following his mysterious disappearance on 25 January. Blows and burns on his body were consistent with torture by Egyptian security officials, but the country’s public prosecution office and ministry of justice declined to question any members of the security services in connection with his death.

Italian politicians immediately cast doubt on the Egyptian claims. “I’m sorry, I don’t buy it,” tweeted former prime minister Enrico Letta. MP Francesco Ferrara told the Ansa news agency the claim left too many questions unanswered, including why Regeni had been detained for days before being killed. “The Italian government and prosecutors shouldn’t give any credibility to what seems like a false reconstruction,” he said.

“According to Egypt, a gang just happened, after two months, to still have Giulio’s bag and IDs safely preserved and easily retrievable during a shoot-out,” said Paz Zarate, a friend of Regeni’s.

The circumstances of Regeni’s torture and murder have left Italian officials and citizens aghast. Egypt has repeatedly insisted it conducted an impartial investigation in cooperation with Italian counterparts - including a search of Regeni’s apartment inCairo - yet Italian officials conducted their own investigation into Regeni’s death, including a separate autopsy.

The doctoral student disappeared while researching trade unions in Egypt, a subject considered sensitive in the years following the country’s 2011 revolution.

The gang members named as Regeni’s killers are detailed as aged between 26 and 60, with three of them listed as accused in a large number of other cases of theft from foreign nationals.

The statement said a search of one gang member’s house unearthed a red duffel bag with an Italian flag that contained Regeni’s student cards, credit cards, mobile phones and a brown wallet with his passport in, as well as a second wallet emblazoned with the word “love” and other personal effects such as sunglasses.
Pictures of an official search appeared to show a child’s hands in the background.
Egyptian brigadier general Hathem Fathy denied a child had been present after pictures of an official search appeared to show a child’s hands in the background. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

Egypt’s interior ministry attached photos of Regeni’s identification documents to the statement. In conversation with the Guardian, spokesman Brig Gen Hathem Fathy said the photos were taken when the police searched the house of “one of the gangsters responsible for killing Regeni”.

The images show Regeni’s documents laid on a large silver tray or held up against a wall. When asked why a child’s hands holding a mobile phone are clearly visible in the background of one of the pictures purporting to be of a police search, Fathy answered by repeatedly insisting that “no children” were involved or present.

Egypt’s police and interior ministry also declined to state why the gang members were killed, rather than arrested.

The private Egyptian newspaper Tahrir News published a series of gruesome pictures purportedly of a microbus following the claimed shootout on Thursday, with the bullet-ridden corpses of at least two gang members inside. At least 27 bullet holes are shown on the front windscreen of the bus and no visible weapons next to either body.

Officials from Egypt’s public prosecution office had earlier denied any link between the gang and Regeni’s killing. It was some hours later that the official statement was released providing details of the raid and the alleged pictures of the house search.

The Italian foreign ministry did not comment on the news immediately. But the development was met with incredulity and outrage on the homepage of the major Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Calling the allegations by the Egyptian ministry that Regeni was killed by a criminal gang “something that does not even vaguely represent the truth about the murder”, a prominent comment piece on the newspaper’s website said that the only thing worse than the “concealment of truth” was “a truth of convenience, unverifiable”.

The words echoed an earlier statement by the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who said in the weeks after Regeni’s murder that Italy would not accept a “convenient truth” in its quest for answers.

Citing unnamed Italian investigators and prosecutors involved in the case, the Italian news agency Ansa later said there were three inconsistencies in Cairo’s latest version of events, which Italian authorities considered fundamental: it was not seen as credible that a band of kidnappers would have maintained Regeni’s documents and risked discovery if they had killed him; it was seen as unbelievable that kidnappers who were looking for money would have tortured him for over a week; and there were doubts about the alleged firefight that killed the men who purportedly killed Regeni.

The unnamed sources also said Egypt had not yet responded to two requests for information. Italian investigators have not yet received video images from the area around where Regeni lived, and the two nearby underground stations. They have also requested but not received certain mobile phone records that could have helped identify Regeni’s movements on the night he disappeared.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... lio-regeni

[carrie]

Well it sounds like the problem has been solved and all responsible have got their just deserts.

[DJKeefy]

And the saga countinues.... (The never ending movie)


Egypt’s prosecution denies involvement of killed ‘gang leader’ in Regeni’s death.

he New Cairo Prosecution said Friday that the criminal gang killed in clashes with police forces on Thursday inside the New Cairo suburb was not involved in the murder of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni.

It explained that accurate investigations unveiled that the criminal gang was involved in several fraud schemes against foreigners, having defrauded an Italian citizen of $10,000.

Five members of the gang were killed Thursday evening, with the Ministry of Interior claiming that Regeni was killed by the gang, which was “specialised in impersonating police forces” and kidnapped foreigners.

Several official and unofficial reactions ensued from the Interior Ministry’s recent statements on the case. The Italian government issued a rebuttal, stating that it is still monitoring the investigation process in Regeni’s case. Italy asked the Egyptian government for clarification and explanation for the circumstances of Regeni’s death, according to statements from the Italian prime minister’s office to the Italian news agency ANSA.

Moreover, Italian state-television reported that Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiolo said his government insists on finding the truth of Regeni’s case. Meanwhile Italian investigators in Cairo said the case “is far from closed”, affirming the lack of definitive evidence confirming that the alleged kidnappers were involved in killing Regeni. They argued that “kidnappers would be unlikely to hold on to compromising evidence, such as Regeni’s belongings and that they would not torture him for a week if their only purpose was to obtain a ransom”, according to the Italian News Agency ANSA.

They also said that it is not credible that all members of the gang were killed, as stated by the interior ministry’s narrative, further condemning their killing as it prevented them from obtaining any information or carrying out accurate investigations with the gang members.

In a statement from the prosecutor’s office, Rome’s Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone said the new evidence supplied by Egyptian authorities “didn’t prove anything”.

The statement indicated that Rome’s Chief Prosecutor believes that evidence provided from the Egyptian authorities to the Italian investigators team “will not shed light on the death” of Regeni or “identify those responsible for the murder”. He added that investigations should proceed, affirming the necessity of providing detailed data from Cairo’s Prosecutor-General.

Reactions to the Interior Ministry’s statement regarding Regeni’s killers included former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta, who said on his Twitter account that he does not believe the Egyptian Interior Ministry’s narrative about Regeni’s death.

The head of the Human Rights Committee in the Italian parliament, Pia Locatelli, denounced in press statements Egyptian interior ministry’s announcements, and said no clear evidence provided has been proving their statements. She further argued that the alleged kidnappers would not torture Regeni for a week, adding that Regeni was subjected to torture by trained personnel.

Regeni’s parents similarly commented on the Egyptian interior ministry’s statements, noting that they are “sure” that Italian government will react to the “outrageous set-up”, according to the Italian News Agency ANSA.

In a subsequent statement to the initial one claiming that the gang had been killed, the ministry said on Thursday night that Regeni’s belongings were discovered in the apartment of one the gang’s members’ sister.

Regeni, who had just turned 28, was a PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and had come to Cairo as a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo (AUC). He was reported missing on the fifth anniversary of 25 January Revolution. He was last known to be travelling to Downtown Cairo via the Behouth metro station.

Source: http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2016/03/2 ... nis-death/

[Dusak]

Well, all I can say is that it was a bloody good job that the extortionists of the foreign victims were not Dutch, otherwise we would never have heard the last of it.

[Major Thom]

dusak I have not finished with that rabble yet, just waiting for the right time.

[Dusak]

OK, we await with baited breath.