Paz Zárate remembers the last conversation she had with Giulio Regeni, the 28-year-old doctoral student from Cambridge who disappeared from a street in Cairo one year ago on Wednesday.

He was feeling happy in life and in love, and fulfilled by the research he was doing. “He felt valued. He was trying to help other people study and pay forward what he considered to be his great luck,” she recalled.

After Regeni’s bruised and tortured body was found in a ditch on the side of the road nine days later it was Zárate and other close friends who started the international campaign to demand answers. It is a campaign that has had profound consequences for the relationship between Egypt and Italy, which recalled its ambassador to Cairo in frustration at the lack of cooperation in its investigation of Regeni’s death.

Giulio Regeni’s murder has come to be seen as symbolic of Egypt’s high number of forced disappearances. Photograph: Twitter

More is now known about the Cambridge student’s final days, including the admission by the head of the street vendors’ union, Mohammed Abdullah, that he alerted Egyptian authorities to Regeni’s work studying labour movements. It is not certain whether that act led to Regeni’s death, but in Italy it is widely believed that he was tortured and murdered by elements of the Egyptian state, even if the government of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has denied culpability.

“We are in a stalemate,” said one Italian official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the government was grappling with whether – and how – to end its impasse with Cairo given other pressing foreign policy concerns, especially in connection to a worsening crisis in Libya, where Egypt wields tremendous influence.

Regular meetings in Rome between Egyptian and Italian investigators suggest progress is being made. Yet in spite of Italian officials stating that they have now received all the requested evidence – such as phone records - there are few assurances this dialogue will lead to any concrete actions on the part of the Egyptian justice system.

Independent efforts by the Regeni family to demand answers have been met with silence. The family’s legal counsel in Egypt has twice requested a copy of the Egyptian public prosecutor’s case file. The file is believed to contain sensitive information, including names of those involved in Regeni’s killing, but they have not received a response.

“We requested the papers from the prosecutor general in Egypt – and reminded him that we originally requested this over seven months ago. We still have no reply about whether we’ll ever get them,” said Ahmed Abdullah, the head of the board of trustees of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, whose lawyers are acting for the Regeni family. “Giving the lawyers the papers is recognition that we’re working on the case and can demand witnesses.”

Ahmed Abdullah, who is not related to Mohammed Abdullah, added: “I want justice for parents everywhere – I want people to know that if any harm were to come to their children, people will fight for justice in that case. Nothing will do for his family and friends but the truth. And we want the truth.”

The apparent failure to hold Regeni’s killer accountable has cast such a long shadow over Italy’s relationship with Egypt that it has made it more difficult to engage with Cairo on stability in Libya, which is Rome’s single most important foreign policy objective.

A candlelight vigil For Giulio Regeni In Rome. Photograph: Elisa Bianchini/Pacific/Barcroft

Egypt is backing Khalil Hafter, the military commander of Libya’s eastern government, who opposes the Italian and UN-backed government in Tripoli, where Rome has just reopened its embassy. Libya is the embarkation point for refugees arriving in Italy by sea, who numbered more than 180,000 in 2016.

A former Nato ambassador to Italy, Stefano Stefanini, said: “We ideally need as much regional diplomacy in Libya as possible and the Regeni case is a stumbling block.” While Italy had taken a “principled position”, the issue had driven the relationship with Cairo to a low ebb that has compounded problems elsewhere, he added.



A senior US government official who served under Barack Obama said the Regeni murder had “severely damaged the relationship” between Egypt and Italy. A spokesman for Egypt’s foreign affairs ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, denied any lasting impact. “Of course at beginning there were some sensitivities, some tension, between two authorities when it came to the investigation due to the eagerness of Italian side to reach conclusions as quickly as possible.

“But with time and cooperation … I think it became clear to the Italian side that the Egyptian authorities are doing their utmost to know who was behind this crime.”



Inside the Italian foreign ministry officials are still considering whether to send an ambassador back to Cairo. “We have not taken a decision at the moment,” said Mario Giro, Italy’s deputy foreign minister. Asked what Italy was waiting for, he said: “[To] put plain light on what happened.”



Even as diplomatic relations have suffered, Italy’s multibillion-euro energy deals with Cairo have expanded. Eni, the Italian government-controlled oil company, released a statement demanding justice in the Regeni case but has also stepped up business with Egypt. It has promised that Egypt’s Zohr natural gas field will be online before the end of 2017 and to increase its investment there by $3.5bn. Claudio Descalzi, the company’s chief executive, met Sisi earlier this month.

In Italy, big yellow flags that call for “Verità per Giulio” (truth for Giulio) still fly outside municipal buildings and homes, but there are not as many as there were before. Regeni’s mother, Paola, has become the public and poignant face of the tragedy, and was named woman of the year by La Repubblica. The Italian newspaper said she had become a symbol for the search for truth and justice, not only in her son’s murder, but for all human rights abuses.



A participant at last year’s Rome marathon shows a ‘Truth for Giulio’ banner in front of St Peter’s Basilica. Photograph: Angelo Carconi/EPA

Regeni’s murder has come to be seen as symbolic of Egypt’s high number of forced disappearances, widely associated with torture, where victims are held in secret without access to their family or lawyers. In their first annual report, ECRF identified 789 cases between August 2015 and August 2016.

Much like his mother, Regeni’s friend Zárate, a native of Chile and expert in international law, had a feeling things would go badly when she first heard Regeni had disappeared. If there was any relief, she said, it was that they had found his body and that he could be buried.

After they heard the news, there was very little time to organise, but friends from all walks of Regeni’s life acted quickly, and made sure the world knew his name.

“He symbolises working hard, being an intelligent person, and overcoming difficult circumstances and being able to serve the world. It is something that unites us all, all of his friends. We are all seekers in a way,” she said.

Egyptian state TV airs video of Regeni

A new video that proves Giulio Regeni was under state surveillance was released on Egyptian state television this week, supporting claims by the head of an Egyptian trade union that he reported his alleged suspicions about Regeni’s research to the police shortly before the student was tortured and murdered.

The video shows Regeni speaking in Arabic to the Cairo street vendors union head, Mohammed Abdullah, who repeatedly asks Regeni for money, saying he needs the funds to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment. Regeni replies that he cannot give Abdullah his grant money – which he acknowledges come from the UK – for personal reasons, but suggests Abdullah could apply for a grant to help his own union activity.

The video was shot using a micro-camera that was hidden in Abdullah’s shirt button.

While Regeni’s reference to foreign funds used in his research would not be unusual in academic circles, the foreign funding of non-governmental organisations has been extremely controversial in Egypt since 2013, when the government began cracking down on such NGOs, claiming they were a threat to national security.

Michele Dunne, an Egypt expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the video supported the widely held view that Regeni was killed by the Egyptian state, which was why its release by Egyptian state television was difficult to understand.

“The purpose of the video is to cast dispersions and say that he was clearly up to something nefarious, and putting foreign money into trade unions. If I had a guess I would say the authorities realise that someone from the state killed him and they are trying to say, whoever killed him, it was because he was a bad guy and deserved it,” she said. “It is so pathetic and sad that a year after his death, someone in the state is trying to besmirch his reputation.”

Stephanie Kirchgaessner