Egypt's prosecutor-general, Nabil Sadek, will meet his Italian counterpart, Giuseppe Pignatone, in Rome next week as part of the latest round of meetings between investigators from the two countries who are looking into the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, Italian agency ANSA reported on Tuesday. According to ANSA, the meetings will be held at the request of Rome's prosecution office, and will take place on 8 and 9 September. This is the third meeting between Egyptian prosecutors and investigators looking into the case and their Italian counterparts, and they will discuss the latest developments in the probe into Regeni's death. The Egyptian and Italian teams first met in Cairo in March and then in Rome in April. The PhD student, who was in Cairo conducting research on independent trade unions, went missing on 25 January. His body was found, bearing signs of torture, by a roadside on the outskirts of Cairo on 3 February. Egypt has strongly denied claims that security forces were involved in Regeni's murder. The Italian government recalled their ambassador to Cairo in April in response to Egypt's handling of the investigation Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said. Italian officials have publicly criticised what they described as a lack of transparency from the Egyptian side. A new Italian ambassador to Cairo, Giampaolo Cantini was appointed in May but has not yet taken up residence in Egypt. Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi repeatedly stated in various interviews that the Regeni murder would not affect Egypt-Italian relations. In an April interview, Sisi blamed "evil" people in Egypt for "lie- and allegation-mongering" about the case and embarrasing Egypt internationally.
