"I will tell him that as far as we are concerned, the case can only be closed by 'truth'. Nothing is subordinate to the truth," Alfano said. 

After a working lunch with Shoukry, Alfano said his Egyptian counterpart had reiterated that Cairo would do its "all" to discover the truth about the Cambridge doctoral student from northeaster Italy. 

Referring to the current lack of an ambassador in Cairo because of the case, Alfano affirmed that Egypt wants ties with Italy to be fully restored.

The foreign minister added that Cairo was "prepared to retrieve the truth out of any drawer it might be in, giving a helping hand until the end to find those responsible for the murder".

Regini, 28, went missing in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016, on the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted former strongman and president Hosni Mubarak. 

His severely tortured and mutilated body was found on February 3 in a ditch on the city's outskirts. 

Egypt has denied speculation its security forces, who are frequently accused of brtually repressing opposition, were involved in the death of the Cambridge doctoral student. 

Egyptian and Italian prosecutors have been working on the case but Rome has yet to send a new ambassador to Cairo in protest at the lack of progress. 

At the end of January, the deputy head of the Egyptian parliament's foreign affairs committe, Tarek El Khouly, repeated that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wants to find the people who tortured and murdered Regeni. 

"I think there is an order from the Egyptian political leaders, from the president in person, to the general prosecutor to discover who killed Regeni, whoever that may be," El Khouly said. 

"I think that in any part of the world mistakes are made by those in charge of security. Perhaps it is a crime concerning an Egyptian security guard, perhaps not," El Khouly continued, adding that the Regeni case had been politically "exploited" in both Egypt and Italy.

It recently emerged that the head of the trade union for Egyptian street vendors secretly filmed Regeni for the Cairo police in December 2015. The union official Mohammed Abdallah said he had agreed to do his patriotic duty because Regeni was a "spy". 

With ANSA