A year after the mutilated body of a Cambridge University student was found in a ditch in Egypt, Amnesty International has launched a campaign to bring his killers to justice.
PhD student Giulio Regeni, an Italian national, was tortured and murdered during a research trip to Cairo, where he was investigating trade unions. His body was found in February, nine days after he disappeared.
An autopsy carried out in Italy found that he had experienced “inhuman, animal-like violence” before his death, with reports that his finger and toe nails had been ripped out.
Dr Antonio Marchesi, president of Amnesty International Italy, said the organisation would campaign for “as long as it takes” to get justice and truth for the 28-year-old.
“Neither we nor his family are willing to be fobbed off with false accounts of what happened to Giulio, or mere fragments of the truth,” Marchesi said.
“We need to see everyone responsible for Giulio’s killing - as well as those who seem to have acted to cover it up - brought to justice.”
The campaign, titled “Truth for Giulio”, will see a series of high-profile public events at universities across the country, as well as a panel discussion at Amnesty International’s London headquarters.
The initiative follows international public outcry and a series of protests and rallies around the world.
Amnesty International believes that Regeni is one of hundreds of students, protestors and activists they claim have been “forcibly disappeared” by Egypt’s National Security Agency since 2015.
Shane Enright, the charity’s trade union campaigner, said: “Giulio’s terrible fate has been mirrored in countless other cases of enforced disappearance in Egypt.
“We want accountability, an end to impunity, and an end to these dreadful cases of disappearance and torture in Egypt.”
Egyptian authorities, who said the student had been kidnapped and killed by a gang, have been heavily criticised for their handling of Regeni’s case.
No-one has ever been arrested over Regeni’s death, with Egyptian police claiming all of the gang members were killed in a shoot out, which Cambridge academics called “implausible and risible”.
Egyptian television aired a video earlier this week showing Regeni being repeatedly asked for money by the head of a Cairo street vendors’ union, who says he later reported Regeni to the police as a spy.
Egyptian officials have denied any involvement in the student’s death after Italian newspapers claimed the union leader had been given the film equipment by Egyptian police.