Tom Kington Rome

A vital clue to the identity of the killers of Cambridge student Giulio Regeni may be hidden in the data banks of the internet giant Google, Italian police believe.

Investigators in Rome have asked the US firm to provide the identity of a mysterious computer or smartphone that gained access to Regeni’s Gmail account after his death using a password his murderers might have known.

The Italian PhD student disappeared from his Cairo apartment on January 25 before his battered corpse was found dumped by a roadside nine days later, leading to suspicions that he was tortured by Egyptian security forces because of his research into anti-government unions.

Mr Regeni’s phone was never found, although Italian police recovered his laptop computer. While