Egypt's Al-Ahram Newspaper Urges Authorities to Handle Slain Guilio Regeni Case to Avoid Diplomatic Risk

By Staff Writer | Apr 04, 2016 05:23 AM EDT

Egypt's top state newspaper editor warns the state authorities to take on the case of the slain Italian student seriously. The editor published on the front page column telling the officials are not aware of the grave consequences of the case that will affect the countries' relationship to Italy.

According to ABC News, Al-Ahram's Editor-in-Chief Mohammed Abdel-Hadi Allam took the front page column of the newspaper to warn the state officials and authorities regarding the case of an Italian student, Guilio Regeni, who was tortured and killed in Cairo.

The editor compared the case to the case of an Egyptian teen, Khaled Said, who was beaten to death by police in Alexandria in 2010. Said's death has sparked a revolution on January 2011 that overthrown Hosni Mubarak's regime.  "The naive stories about Regeni's death have hurt Egypt at home and abroad and offered some a justification to judge what is going on in the country now to be no different from the January revolution," he stated.

The Egypt-Italy relations were shaken after an unmatched investigations. Regeni's body was recovered dumped beside a road and was unrecognizable as his mother said, she can only recognized him by the tip of his nose, ABC News reported.

According to Egyptian authorities, Regeni's death was killed by a criminal gang, who were specializing in abducting foreigners. The members of the said gang were all killed in a shootout and the victim's belonging such identification card were all found in the gang's hideout, Egyptian authorities cliamed. However, Italian officials questioned their claims, and believed that Regeni was killed by Egyptian security forces.

The CBC World reported, the 28 year old Italian student is a student at Cambridge, had been researching trade unions. He was reported disappeared in January 25, while on his way to a party in Cairo. His body was later found with signs of torture on 3 February, a week after his disappearance in Cairo.

Allam's statement, appealing to reveal the truth, seemed to support the contention that the official criminal gang explanation is not the truth.  He also appealed to the state to handle the case with the "utmost seriousness and bring the culprits to justice."

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