Former prime minister Conte was testifying at a hearing of the trial in absentia of four Egyptian security officials accused of torturing the Italian student to death in January-February 2016.
El-Sisi has expressed “an apparent willingness in words, never a refusal” to help in the investigation, “but there has never been actual cooperation”, Conte said.
Regeni, 28, a Friuli-born Cambridge University doctoral researcher into Caito street unions, was allegedly abducted and tortured to death by National Security Major General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates.
Major Madgi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, Colonel Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Colonel Uhsam Helmi, Sabir’s subordinates, are not attending the trial after Egypt refused to notify them of the proceedings.
Regeni was allegedly targeted because of the politically sensitive nature of his research after a street seller union chief fingered him as an alleged spy.
The student’s parents, Claudio Regeni and Claudia Deffendi, said earlier this month that they had called el-Sisi and his son Mahmoud to testify.
They added that el-Sisi’s presence at the trial could also represent an opportunity for them to be given back their son’s personal effects, as promised.
However, their attorney, Alessandra Ballerini, on Tuesday said el-Sisi refused the notification to testify at a hearing scheduled Wednesday.
“It would be splendid for someone to take responsibility after nine years,” said Ballerini.
“Testifying is mandatory and, if he doesn’t want to, someone should, in theory, go pick him up.
“Unfortunately, it won’t happen,” she said.
Speaking at the hearing on Tuesday, Conte said he held several meetings with el-Sisi when he was prime minister and recalled a “particularly tense bilateral meeting” in 2018, in Palermo.
Conte said there was no occasion in which he didn’t “insistently request cooperation from Egypt, which objectively nearly didn’t exist”.
Conte served as PM in two different governments from June 2018 to January 2021.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo.
El-Sisi has repeatedly promised to help Italy get to the truth about the murder.
ANSA
