Italy demands action over murder of student, Giulio Regini, in Egypt

The editor of Egypt’s top state newspaper is calling on authorities to seriously deal with the case of an Italian student tortured and killed in Cairo, saying officials who do not realise the gravity of the case are risking a break in Egyptian-Italian relations.

In a front-page column, Al-Ahram’s editor-in-chief Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Allam suggested that Cambridge student Giulio Regeni’s killing might have the same impact in Egypt as the 2010 beating to death by police of an Egyptian youth in the coastal city of Alexandria.

The brutal death of Khaled Said helped ignite a popular 18-day uprising that began on January 25 2011 and toppled the 29-year regime of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.