Italy gets assurances on Regeni PRESIDENT Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi assured a delegation of Italian lawmakers last week that Egypt is committed to bringing to justice the killers of Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, according to a presidential statement. In his meeting with the Italian delegation led by head of the Italian Senate's Defence Committee Nicola Latorre, Al-Sisi stressed the need to continue close cooperation between investigators in the two countries. “The president reiterated Egypt's full commitment to working on disclosing the circumstances surrounding the incident so as to determine the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” the statement said. “Egypt aspires to develop its historical relations that tie it to Italy and to relaunch them,” it added. Al-Sisi also stated his “confidence in the capacity of relations between the two countries to overcome the various challenges”. He stressed the importance of boosting parliamentary visits “to lend fresh impetus to the privileged ties of friendship between the Egyptian and Italian peoples”. Latorre, of the ruling centre left Democratic Party, said during his visit that “Italy strongly feels the need for truth... on the murder of one of our sons”. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, Latorre added that “this truth requires a significant impulse in the activities of judicial cooperation.” The visit by the Italian delegation is the first political visit to Egypt almost a year and a half after the then Italian minister of economic development Federica Guidi visited Egypt in February 2016, a month after Regeni's death. Regeni, 28, a PhD student at Cambridge University in the UK and affiliated with the American University in Cairo, was in Egypt to research trade unions and labour movements. He was reported missing on the fifth anniversary of the 25 January Revolution. His mutilated and half-naked body was found on 3 February 2016 on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road. Tension between both countries has been rising since the body of Regeni was found. In April 2016, Italy recalled its ambassador to Cairo Maurizio Massari over the lack of progress in Egypt's investigation into Regeni's death. In June 2016, the Italian Senate suspended the deliveries of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets to Egypt. According to media reports, the Italian delegation said that it was a matter of time before the Italian ambassador returns to Egypt. Several meetings between Egyptian prosecutors and their Italian counterparts have taken place to discuss the investigation into the killing. The latest was in May when Italian Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco arrived in Cairo for two days of talks with officials, including with his Egyptian counterpart Prosecutor-General Nabil Sadek. Arms smuggling attempt foiled AN ATTEMPT to smuggle arms into the country through its western border with Libya has been squashed, the military said Sunday. The Air Force launched a reconnaissance mission on Saturday following intelligence that “criminals” in 4x4 vehicles were in the process of crossing into Egypt, the army said in a statement. During the operation, which continued into Sunday, forces destroyed 15 vehicles “laden with weapons, explosives and other smuggled items”. Forces launched a hunt to catch the criminals, the statement added. The army has been conducting operations in Egypt's Western Desert to stop the infiltration of militants and the smuggling of weapons through the Egyptian-Libyan border. In May, Egyptian fighter jets carried out air strikes against terrorist camps in Libya, hours after gunmen killed 29 Coptic Christians travelling to southern Egypt in a bus attack. Egyptian officials said terrorists in Libya were training militants who carried out the attack. Days later, four army personnel were killed during an army operation against militants in the Western Desert's Bahareya Oasis, near the border with Libya.
