After Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni stressed Italy's strong focus on respecting human rights to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, referring in particular to the abduction, torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, the official spokesman for the Egyptian President, Bassam Radi, told ANSA:

"The meeting touched on the question of Italian student Regeni and cooperation to reach the truth and obtain justice".

On the sidelines of the CoP27 meeting in Egypt on Monday, Meloni reportedly told Sisi that Italy has paid close attention to the cases of Regeni, an Italian doctoral student abducted, tortured and murdered in Cairo in early 2016, and of Patrick Zaki, an Egyptian student at Bologna University who has been charged with subversion in Egypt since February 2020.

It was the first visit to Egypt by an Italian premier since Regeni's murder, which has strained bilateral ties amid a Rome prosecution request to hand over four Egyptian intelligence officers suspected of torturing the 28-year-old Friuli-born Cambridge University researcher to death because they thought he was spying on Cairo due to his work with street unions.

The premier's office said that the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Sharm el Sheikh summit on climate change gave Meloni an "opportunity to raise the issue of respect for human rights and to underline Italy's strong attention on the cases of Giulio Regeni and Patrick Zaki," who is accused of spreading fake news and calling for unauthorised protests.

The Italian justice ministry said last month that it has had no response from Egypt over its calls for cooperation in the case of the four Egyptian intelligence officers suspected of Regeni's abduction, torture and murder. The trial against the four has been suspended after a Rome court ruled that it could not go ahead because the defendants had not been notified of its existence. Italy has been trying to notify the four officers of their indictments in order to proceed with their trial in absentia, but the efforts ran into a brick wall last year after Cairo refused to help locate them.

The four Egyptian officials are National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif Regeni.

Zaki, who spent 18 months in police custody, is set to face a fresh hearing in Cairo soon.