Thread by @margheritamvs

Italian student Giulio Regeni was found dead on the side of a Cairo highway, bearing cigarette burns, broken teeth and fractured bones. Years later, Italy says it knows what happened. Our reconstruction of Giulio's story, with @jmalsin wsj.com/articles/an-it… via @WSJ

Egyptian security forces recruited three people close to Giulio to spy on him, Italian investigators say: a trade unionist (his main research subject), his housemate and one of his closest friends from Cambridge.

Why was Egypt's security apparatus so interested in a PhD student? He offered to help a trade union apply for a grant from a UK NGO. That was misunderstood: “They thought he wanted to finance a revolution," aid Sergio Colaiocco, the Italian prosecutor who led the investigation.

The Italian investigation reveals #GiulioRegeni was tortured in a building of the National Security Agency located inside the headquarters of Egypt's ministry of interior.

In Office N. 13 "there were metal chains used to tie people up. The upper half of his body was naked, and there were signs of torture. He was speaking in his language, he was delirious,” an NSA witness said. “He was very, very thin. He was handcuffed to the floor.”

Italian prosecutors are pressing charges against 4 Egyptian security officials involved in the murder of #GiulioRegeni. But there are as many as 13 other possible suspects, say Italian investigators. Egypt has declined to share information about them.

The most senior person among those accused is NSA Maj. Gen. Tariq Ali Sabir, who continues to play a central role in the Egyptian state’s crackdown on dissent, sources say. He was recently involved in the arrest of 3 prominent Egyptian human-rights activists.

Don't expect a united European response to the revelations. On the same day Italian prosecutors formally accused the four Egyptian officials, France awarded Egyptian President Sisi the Légion d’honneur, the country’s highest civic honor.

france24.com/en/live-news/2…

Two prominent Italians are returning the Légion d’honneur - France's highest civic honor - to protest Macron's decision to award it to Egypt's President Sisi -- whose security forces are accused of torturing and killing Italian student #GiulioRegeni.
apnews.com/article/europe…