Egyptian police investigated Italian student Giulio Regeni days before his abduction, torture and murder, but dropped the probe after assessing he posed no threat, Egyptian and Italian prosecutors said on Friday. Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University PhD student, disappeared on 25 January in central Cairo. In a joint statement, the two prosecutors said Regeni, who was researching Egyptian street vendor trade unions, had been under investigation for three days by Egyptian police in January. The Egyptian and Rome prosecution would also continue trying to retrieve footage from CCTV cameras in a metro station that Regeni is believed to have entered before being abducted. It had also accused the Italian prosecution of “unconstitutionally” demanding thousands of phone records which it refused to provide.

Source: The Guardian September 09, 2016 17:26 UTC