The investigating judge of Rome has ordered the sending of the documents of the Regeni case to the Constitutional Court and the decision that comes from Piazzale Clodio could open a new page on the case of the researcher killed in 2016 in Egypt.
According to judge Roberto Ranazzi, Cairo’s failure to cooperate in the case and the decision not to provide the information necessary to complete the notifications to the four accused Egyptian 007s is an “anti-democratic” and “authoritarian” choice which creates an “inadmissible ‘free zone’ of impunity”.
The chief prosecutor of Rome, Francesco Lo Voi, was satisfied, commenting: “In our approach, this was the only possibility, should the Council accept the question raised, to be able to celebrate the trial, unless we hypothesize legislative changes, of which for the truth at the moment we don’t see any proposal” “Today there is one more hope”, claims the lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, lawyer of the parents of the victim, Paola Deffendi and Claudio Regeni. “And since we always say that Giulio ‘does things’ – he adds – we hope that he can also intervene in a legislative reform that allows crimes of this gravity not to be left unpunished when states do not cooperate”. of constitutionality linked to article 420 bis of the criminal procedure code, in the part in which it provides that the absence of knowledge of the trial by an accused person derives from the lack of cooperation of a foreign state.
“The factual elements that emerged during the investigation and the preliminary hearing lead us to assume with reasonable certainty that the four defendants are aware of the criminal proceedings in progress in Italy against them – explains the judge in the order – This awareness, presumed , does not, however, allow proceeding in absentia against them”. “From this point of view, the impossibility of proceeding in absentia appears unreasonable and disproportionate when there is no cooperation from the foreign country of origin or residence”, he continues, adding that “it is repugnant to the common sense of justice, that such a serious fact cannot be the subject of a trial”. As for the Convention on torture, “not only has it been ignored by the Egyptian Government and Judicial Authorities – says the investigating judge – but it has been clearly ‘opposed'”.
The four agents of the Egyptian security apparatus involved are Tariq Sabir, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Uhsam Helmi and Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif. They are accused of kidnapping, while Abdelal Sharif is also liable for injuries and complicity in the murder. Giulio was kidnapped on the evening of January 25, 2016 and his body was found ten days later, along the road that connects Cairo to Alexandria. The investigators, coordinated by the assistant prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco, are convinced that the young man was tortured and killed after being reported as a spy to the Egyptian services by a trade unionist with whom he had come into contact for his studies.