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CRIME

Egypt submits new evidence in Giulio Regeni murder investigation

Egypt's judiciary has submitted "new elements" in the investigation of the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, prosecutors from the two countries announced on Thursday.

Egypt submits new evidence in Giulio Regeni murder investigation
Amnesty protesters hold up a picture of Regeni and candles. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

“The Egyptian investigation team has submitted accounts and documents containing new elements,” Attorney General Nabil Sadek of Egypt and his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Pignatone said in a joint statement.

They said the new elements covered “progress achieved by the company tasked with recovering recordings from metro stations in Cairo”, without elaborating.

In January, Egypt authorized Italy to send experts to examine footage from surveillance cameras at a Cairo metro station to shed light on Regeni's final public movements before his disappearance.

READ ALSO: Anger mounts in Italy over student's torturous death in Cairo

Regeni, a PhD student, went missing in the Egyptian capital on January 25th, 2015. His body was found days later, bearing torture marks.

Egypt has faced accusations that a member of its security services murdered the student, who was researching trade unions — a sensitive topic in the country. Cairo has denied those claims.

Rights groups accuse the Egyptian government of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of dissidents, which spiked after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and cracked down on his supporters. The government denies such allegations.

READ ALSO: Slain Italian student's body 'unrecognizable', says mum

POLITICS

Italy’s Liguria regional president arrested in corruption probe

The president of Italy's northwest Liguria region and the ex-head of Genoa's port were among 10 arrested on Tuesday in a sweeping anti-corruption investigation which also targeted officials for alleged mafia ties.

Italy's Liguria regional president arrested in corruption probe

Liguria President Giovanni Toti, a right-wing former MEP who was close to late prime minister Silvio Berlusconi but is no longer party aligned, was placed under house arrest, Genoa prosecutors said in a statement.

The 55-year-old is accused of having accepted 74,100 euros in funds for his election campaign between December 2021 and March 2023 from prominent local businessmen, Aldo Spinelli and his son Roberto Spinelli, in return for various favours.

These allegedly included seeking to privatise a public beach and speeding up the renewal for 30 years of the lease of a Genoa port terminal to a Spinelli family-controlled company, which was approved in December 2021.

A total of 10 people were targeted in the probe, also including Paolo Emilio Signorini, who stepped down last year as head of the Genoa Port Authority, one of the largest in Italy. He was being held in jail on Tuesday.

He is accused of having accepted from Aldo Spinelli benefits including cash, 22 stays in a luxury hotel in Monte Carlo – complete with casino chips, massages and beauty treatments – and luxury items including a 7,200-euro Cartier bracelet.

The ex-port boss, who went on to lead energy group Iren, was also promised a 300,000-euro-a-year job when his tenure expires, prosecutors said.

In return, Signorini was said to have granted Aldo Spinelli favours including also working to speed up the renewal of the family’s port concession.

The Spinellis are themselves accused of corruption, with Aldo – an ex-president of the Genoa and Livorno football clubs – placed under house arrest and his son Roberto temporarily banned from conducting business dealings.

In a separate strand of the investigation, Toti’s chief of staff, Matteo Cozzani, was placed under house arrest accused of “electoral corruption” which facilitated the activities of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra Mafia.

As regional coordinator during local elections in 2020, he was accused of promising jobs and public housing in return for the votes of at least 400 Sicilian residents of Genoa.

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