“When I had to identify Giulio’s body I could only see his face. I saw the brutality, the savagery, on our son’s body,” Paola Deffendi told the court.
“He was covered by a sheet, and I asked to see at least his feet but a nun told me, ‘Your son is a martyr.’
“There, I understood that he had been tortured.”
Regeni, 28, was a Friuli-born Cambridge University doctoral researcher into Cairo street unions.
He was allegedly abducted and tortured to death by National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates, Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif.
The four Egyptians are not attending after Egypt refused to notify them of the proceedings.
He was allegedly targeted because of the politically sensitive nature of his research, after a street seller union chief fingered him as an alleged spy.
Amnesty International has said that Regeni is one of countless political prisoners that are allegedly ‘disappeared’ in Egypt every year.
Regeni’s body, according to an Italian autopsy, showed major signs of extreme torture.
He had contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches and assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among them seven broken ribs, all his fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades made with a hard and hot object; a brain haemorrhage and a broken cervical vertebra, which ultimately caused his death.
Egypt has cleared the four officers accused in the case.
Regeni’s half-naked body was found in a ditch on the Cairo-Alexandria highway on February 3, 2016, a week after he disappeared on the Cairo metro on January 25.
At various times, Egypt has advanced differing explanations for his death.
Such explanations include a car accident, a gay lovers’ tiff and abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was wiped out after Regeni’s documents were allegedly planted in their lair.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome’s temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo.
Successive Italian governments have drawn condemnation from Regeni’s parents by continuing to cooperate with Cairo on deals ranging from migration to oil finds and arms sales, including the sale of two Italian-made frigates.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has repeatedly promised to help Italy get to the truth about the murder.
Italian journalist Corrado Augias returned his Legion d’Honneur to France after Paris gave Sisi the same honour for services to relations between the countries.
ANSA
