A lawyer who was investigating the abduction and murder of a Cambridge University student in Cairo has himself disappeared - while en route to a conference to discuss state-sanctioned disappearances.

Ibrahim Metwaly was scheduled to fly to Geneva to address a UN meeting about forced disappearances and the case of Giulio Regeni, 28, who was carrying out research on Egypt’s trade unions when he disappeared on January 25, 2016.

Two weeks later his battered, tortured body was found dumped by the side of a main road outside Cairo, amid suspicions that he had been kidnapped and killed by the Egyptian security forces.