Cairo has called on the Italian government to hand over two Italian suspects, who are former members of the diplomatic mission at the Embassy of Rome in Cairo, after they were convicted of smuggling Egyptian antiquities.
Meanwhile, the case of the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, is gaining momentum in Italy, after Rome pointed to Egyptian security officials’ role in his death.
Regeni, a 28-year-old graduate student at the University of Cambridge, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016.
Italian prosecutors had recently said that they “intend to charge four Egyptian security officers as possible suspects in the case.” Egypt’s Public Prosecution, for its part, affirms its “adherence to the lack of (sufficient evidence) to refer the case to the court.”
Meanwhile, according to a report published by Egypt’s official news portal, the Egyptian Interpol “demanded that Italy hand over L.S. - a former Italian diplomat in Egypt - who was sentenced to 15 years in jail and a fine of one million pounds for smuggling nearly 22,000 artifacts into Italy from 2016 to 2018 through the containers of the diplomatic mission of the State of Italy, with the participation of M.S., a diplomatic attaché at the Italian embassy.”
According to Egyptian Interpol, “a container was seized in Italy, and part of the antiquities were returned, unlike many other smuggling operations that took place during that period with the knowledge of Italian agents in partnership with Egyptians.”
