“There is a judicial process that is going on, for us it is important, in my opinion it must go on, we will continue to try to get even more,” she said after meeting President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has made several vain promises to help in the case.

“I think what we have to do is to move forward on the front of truth and justice.”

The second hearing in a trial long postponed due to Egyptian stonewalling is set to open in Rome Monday.

In the first hearing, the prosecution claimed that Regeni was the victim of ‘web’ weaved by the defendants.

“The overall picture that has emerged is that of a web that slowly, between September 2015 and 25 January 2016, was tightened around Regeni by the defendants,” said deputy prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco.

“A web created both through the acquisition of his passport without his knowledge, house searches in his absence, stalking, photographs and videos, and through the ‘friends’ Regeni frequented who reported, in real time, to the defendants about their meetings with the Italian,” Colaiocco added, referring to the street union leaders who thought the 28-year-old Friuli born student was a spy.

The prosecutor also stressed that they would need the Italian foreign ministry to work with them to call and hear Egyptian witnesses during the trial.

“We say it from now on: we will need the fruitful work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which will have to elicit the cooperation of the Egyptian authorities.

“Only the Egyptian police can serve the papers and give the go-ahead to hear at trial the 27 witnesses on our list living in Egypt.

“This cooperation will be crucial for a complete and exhaustive reconstruction of the facts”.

Regeni’s parents, meanwhile, were asked about Giorgia Meloni’s assurances in Cairo.

“We do not comment on Prime Minister Meloni’s words, we just say that in our country, fortunately, there is the separation of powers, unlike what happens in regimes,” said Alessandra Ballerini, lawyer of Giulio Regeni’s parents, Claudio Regeni and Paola Defendi.

Meloni said after signing the EU deal with Sisi that “the work we are doing with Egypt does not change our position on the Regeni case”.

ANSA