KILLING OF REGENI - Egyptian law prohibits extradition of citizens for trials in foreign country, says lawyer

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Egypt Today staff

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Sat, 02 Jan 2021 - 12:29 GMT

BY

Egypt Today staff

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 - 12:29 GMT

Egyptian lawyer and politician Mohamed Bahaa Eldin Abou Shoka- photo courtesy of his Facebook page

Egyptian lawyer and politician Mohamed Bahaa Eldin Abou Shoka- photo courtesy of his Facebook page

CAIRO – 2 January 2021: “The Egyptian law prohibits the extradition of an Egyptian citizen for trial in a foreign country as long as that case is under investigation in Egypt,” Egyptian lawyer and politician Mohamed Bahaa Eldin Abou Shoka commented on Italy’s request to extradite Egyptian security personnel accused of killing the Italian researcher Giulio Regeni.
 
In media remarks to “El Hekaya” talk show on MBC Masr on Friday, he added that that is why Egypt will not send any lawyer to Italy in case of the trial was held there in absentia.
 
Abou Shoka said that the investigations revealed that a street vendor has reported on Regen after he suspected him to the Egyptian security forces. 
 
He added that Regeni was conducting research on trade unions (union of the street vendors and union of mortgage tax employers) and made several interviews made recorders with street vendors. Abou Shoka said that one of the street vendors was offered a big amount of money by Regeni from a certain country and at that time the street vendor directed to a police station to repot on Regeni and spoke about his offer.
 
Afterwards, the concerned security bodies started using the visual tools for searching for Regeni, Abu Shoka continued.  
 
 
 
In a response to a question about how the Italian prosecution learned about the names of the accused police officers, Abou Shoka said that the names were mentioned in the investigations by the street vendor, and consequently the Italian prosecution learned about the accused police officers from the Egyptian investigations, noting that the Egyptian prosecution was cooperating with the Italian side and has nothing to hide.
 
 
 
The politician did not rule out that a gang could be responsible for kidnapping and torturing Regeni to death because the security forces have been previously reported since 2015 about  a gang was targeting foreigners in Egypt like Portuguese and Nigerian citizens, besides other Egyptian nationals missing.
 
 
 
 
 
The professor of criminal law added that the Egyptian judicial authorities asked the Italian Prosecutor to provide “alleged evidence of the involvement of Egyptian security men in the incident.” However, he said that the Italian judicial authorities refused to cooperate with the Egyptian prosecution in this matter. 
 
Three days ago, the Egyptian prosecution closed officially the investigations into the murder incident, in which five Egyptian security men from the National Security Agency are accused of “kidnapping and torturing Regeni to death” in 2016.
 
On November 30, 2020, the Italian Public Prosecution in Rome said five persons belonging to security authorities are suspects in Italian student Giulio Regeni's murder case in Cairo in 2016, but the Egyptian prosecution sees the suspicion "baseless".
 
Regeni, a 28-year old doctoral researcher, disappeared early in 2016 in the Egyptian capital; he was found dead in February of the same year, with his body bearing signs of torture. The perpetrators of the crime have not yet been brought to justice despite judicial cooperation between Egypt and Italy.
 
The Egyptian prosecution said, in a joint statement by both prosecutions, that Regeni had been a victim of a robbery gang, saying it could find his belongings in the apartment of one of the gang’s members. It, however, affirmed that Regeni’s murderer is still unknown to the Egyptian side.
 

The full statement reads as follows:

 

A statement by the Egyptian Public Prosecution Office and the Republican Prosecution in Rome, on the incident of the murder of the Italian student, Giulio Regeni, within the framework of the mutual and continuous judicial cooperation between the Egyptian Public Prosecution Office and the Republican Prosecution in Rome, over the past years until now and after many meetings were held between the two parties, the most recent of which were the meetings of the investigation teams on the two prosecution on the 28th of last October in Cairo, and one the 5th of November in Rome, where each team provided the other with all the information it had and the results of the investigations into the incident. And after the two teams exchanged views headed by the Egyptian Attorney General and the Republican Attorney General in Rome, they reached the following results:

 

Firstly: The Prosecution of the Republic in Rome announces its intention to end the investigations into the incident by suspecting five individuals belonging to the security services, who committed individual actions, without having any connection to any Egyptian governmental bodies or institutions. This suspicion was presented, in accordance with the Italian judicial procedures, to the Preliminary Investigations Judge in Rome, to assess and take the judicial procedures in his regard. And that the Egyptian Public Prosecution, despite its briefing and appreciation of the Italian legal procedures, nevertheless has reservations about this suspicion and does not support it, considering that it is not based on firm evidence, and Egyptian Public Prosecution confirms its understanding of the independent decisions that will be taken by the Prosecutor of the Republic in Rome.

 

Secondly: The Egyptian Public Prosecution announces that it has found firm evidence that gang members committed the stealing of the belongings of the victim who was coerced, as those belongings were found at the residence of one of the gang members, and the testimonies of some witnesses confirmed that. Investigations also revealed that the gang committed similar crimes and among their victims there were foreigners, including Italians, other than the victim. In committing their crimes, they used forged documents, which incorrectly attribute them to an Egyptian security agency. The Egyptian Public Prosecution Office will act according to this.

 

Thirdly: The Egyptian Public Prosecution confirms that the perpetrator of the incident of murdering the victim is still unknown, and that it will act in the investigation file of the incident by temporarily closing it, while instructing the search and investigation authorities to continue to take all necessary measures to reach the perpetrator of the crime. The Republic Prosecution office in Rome fulfills the decision of the Egyptian Public Prosecution.

 

Finally, the two parties expressed their commitment to continuing judicial cooperation between them and to provide all the information they reached regarding the incident, to reveal the truth, and the two prosecution offices confirm that the judicial cooperation between them was and remains at the highest levels in all judicial fields.

 

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