On the Guardian’s website a plea was signed by 334 academic figures, questioning the articles published by La Repubblica concerning the lack of collaboration by the University of Cambridge and by Professor Maha Mahfouz Abdel Rahman with the Italian investigators who were investigating on the murder of Giulio Regeni. The British newspaper did not contact La Repubblica for a reply, which we felt would have been appropriate.

The Italian Version

La Repubblica has always written that the Egyptian authorities were totally responsible for the kidnapping, torture and murder of Giulio Regeni. And La Repubblica was the first to do so by indicating names and surnames of those responsible for the surveillance of Regeni and the fact that Cairo threw things off track on his death.  It has always claimed that the delays carried out by the Egyptian government and magistrate in verifying these responsibilities are unacceptable.  And it has questioned the decision of the Italian government to send the ambassador back in Cairo in spite of the lack of significant developments in the collaboration of the Egyptian authorities.
 
In the meantime, La Repubblica does not intend to keep quiet about the lack of collaboration in the judicial investigation by Professor Abdel Rahman of the University of Cambridge. All of this was found by the Italian magistrate, which a month before our article,  requested the British authorities to formally question the Professor.  After almost two months, this request still has not received a reply.
 
Previously, in June 2016, Professor Abdel Rahman refused to reply to the request made by the Italian magistrate for a questioning by the rogatory commission, by simply transmitting a short written statement.  Neither the Professor nor the University have ever supplied any explanations on the fate of the ten reports in which Giulio Regeni had carried out the research in Cairo.
 
The Italian magistrates have verified Giulio Regeni’s fears for the danger that his research had exposed him to. And they write that “a conversation that took place in a Skype chat on October 26, 2015 between Regeni and his mother Paola allow us to know how Giulio was experiencing his research in Cairo and to discover how Professor Abdel Rahman insisted that he further study the specific subject for his research and how."

Furthermore, according to the investigation carried out by the Italian magistrates it surfaces that  “some students from the University of Cambridge were sent to Egypt for this type of research and then  sent away by the Egyptian authorities. In particular the same Giulio Regeni told his friends about a colleague at Cambridge who, sent to Egypt the previous year to carry out his same research, was expelled from the country and had had to go to a psychologist for the trauma suffered following the Egyptian experience.”
 
La Repubblica has made a commitment to find out the truth about Giulio Regeni’s death. A complete truth, in which the responsibility of the Egyptian authorities for his terrible death and the fact that everything was thrown off-track, arises. But an explanation should also be given as to why a young researcher who loved his work and was honored to carry it out for the University of Cambridge was exposed to such risks.