Europe should take "targeted action" against Egypt over the 2016 murder there of Giulio Regeni, Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Wednesday, citing "chilling" evidence from Rome prosecutors that the research student was tortured to death by security agents after his abduction in central Cairo, according to sources.
"Italy is founder member of the European Union and cannot backtrack on human rights. Our European partners should also make their positions clear in this sphere through targeted action," Di Maio said, cited by the sources.
Di Maio did not specify what the "targeted" EU action might be.
His comments came after Rome prosecutors charged four members of Egypt's security agency over Regeni's kidnapping and murder. The prosecutors named the suspects as Tariq Saber, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Capt Uhsam Helmi and Maj Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
Regeni’s body was found on the side of a highway on the outskirts of Cairo in early February 2016, bearing signs of extreme torture, nine days after he vanished in central Cairo on 25 January that year.
According to Rome prosecutors, Egyptian security services ensnared Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University PhD student who was researching the politically sensitive topic of independent trade unions at the time of his disappearance.
Egyptian security forces has forcibly “disappeared” over 2,720 people since 2015, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, whose lawyers act for the Regeni family in Egypt, said in September.
