Italian journalist tortured to death by egyptian secret intelligence agencies

[DetlefK]

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/giulio-regeni-foltertod-eines-italieners-in-aegypten-a-1076483.html
(article in german)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/08/thousands-of-academics-demand-inquiry-into-cairo-death-of-giulio-regeni
http://www.madamasr.com/news/officer-investigating-giulio-regeni-death-previously-convicted-torture-murder



Giulio Regeni, an Italian who studied in Cambridge, was working in Egypt as a journalist. He did research on the topic of worker's unions... which is politically sensitive, because the worker's unions are the last big critics of the regime of Al-Sisi. And Regeni wrote for a communist newspaper in Italy.

January 25th 2016, the anniversary of the Tahrir-protests that ousted Mubarak. Massive police-presence in the streets. Giulio Regeni heads to work, but simply disappears.

Several days later, the italian government pleads with Al-Sisi to help search for Regeni. A few hours later Regeni's corpse is found in a ditch:
Half-naked, bruises, cut-wounds, burn-marks, broken bones, fingernails and toenails ripped out.
The Chief of Police of the city Giza declares it a traffic-accident.

Only after a formal diplomatic protest of Italy, Egypt agrees to an autopsy.

The new official position of the egyptian is that egyptian authorities had nothing to do with Regeni. They claim, jihadists kidnapped and tortured him... even though torture is highly unusual for egyptian jihadists and perfectly normal for egyptian police and secret intelligence.

By mid-year of 2014, Egypt had 40,000 political prisoners. More recent numbers simply aren't available.
Egyptians get dragged before military tribunals instead of receiving a formal trial.
Torture is an everyday-occurence in egyptian police-headquarters and prisons.
People disappear every day.

A senior police officer in charge of the preliminary investigation into the murder of visiting Italian student Giulio Regeni has a prior conviction for torturing a man to death and forging a police report, according to rights activists.