Regeni: Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office: ‘A methodical and cold-blooded act of violence against a defenceless man’
The evidence gathered regarding alleged British involvement “has been thoroughly investigated, verified and examined from every possible angle” without “any useful evidence” coming to light. Regeni “was not a spy”, the public prosecutor reiterated
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Key points
Ten and a half years of waiting to reach the bunker courtroom at Rebibbia. Today, the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office delivered its closing speech in the trial of four members of the Egyptian security services accused of the abduction, torture and murder of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher killed in Cairo in January 2016. The defendants are not present in court, as Egypt has never cooperated with the Italian judicial authorities.
‘A methodical, cold-blooded and organised act of violence against a defenceless man’
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco opened the prosecution’s case. “What is being judged here is not merely the taking of a human life,” he began. “What is being judged here is the methodical, cold-blooded and organised use of violence against a defenceless man.” On 25 January 2016, Colaiocco explained, Regeni “unwittingly entered a grey area where the rule of law ceases to exist”. From that moment, according to the prosecution, “he was no longer a person”, but “a kidnapped body”, “a subject over whom absolute power could be exercised”.
Men of State
The most striking point of the prosecution’s case concerns the nature of the perpetrators of the crime. ‘It was not common criminals who carried out all this, nor were they members of the underworld,’ said Colaiocco. ‘They were men of the State, belonging to the security apparatus’: precisely those to whom a State entrusts the legitimate use of force. When this force “becomes an instrument of torture”, he added, “the very idea of a civilised legal system is undermined” and “the principle that no power can exist without accountability”.
The English track
Colaiocco has also definitively ruled out the so-called ‘British lead’: all the evidence gathered regarding alleged British involvement ‘has been thoroughly investigated, verified and scrutinised from every possible angle’, without ‘any useful evidence’ coming to light. Regeni ‘was not a spy’, the prosecutor reiterated.
Tomorrow it will be the turn of the civil parties. “They are extremely excited and full of anticipation,” said Alessandra Bellerini, the lawyer representing Giulio Regeni’s parents, as she arrived in court. “It is now more than just confidence; it is a matter of faith.”
