A Palestinian former prisoner in the
same Cairo secret police facility as Giulio Regeni said in a
video shown at the Rome trial in absentia of four Egyptian
intelligence officers accused of torturing to death the Italian
student that he had "seen Giulio blindfolded and exhausted by
the torture.
"Giulio Regeni was handcuffed with his hands behind his back,
blindfolded," said the former detainee in a video of a
documentary broadcast by Al Jazeera, and shown in the courtroom
Tuesday.
"I saw him again as he was leaving the interrogation, exhausted
by torture. He was between two jailers who were carrying him on
their shoulders. They were taking him back to the cells".
Regeni, 28, a Cambridge university doctoral researcher into
Cairo street unions, was allegedly tortured to death between
February 25 and February 3 2016 after Egyptian security officers
decided he was a spy.
National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates,
Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Helmi, and Major Magdi
Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, are on trial in absentia in Rome after
Egypt refused to notify them of the proceedings.
Regeni was tortured so badly that his mother Paola
Deffendi said she could only recognise him "from the tip of his
nose".
Deffendi said "all the evil in the world" was visited on her
son's body.
The Palestinian witness added in the documentary: "He wasn't
naked, he was wearing clothes, dark pants and a white T-shirt. I
saw another prisoner with signs of torture on his back.
"The jailers insisted a lot with the question 'Giulio, where did
you learn to overcome the techniques to face the interrogation'.
"They were nervous, they used electric shocks and tortured him
with electricity."
In addition to the jailers, the witness also said in court,
"there were investigators, officers I had not seen before and a
colonel, a doctor specialized in psychology.
"There was no contact with the outside world: the feeling was
that of being in a tomb. I was kidnapped, detained and then
released without a reason."
Amnesty International has said that Regeni is one of thousands
of political prisoners that are allegedly 'disappeared' in Egypt
every year.
Regeni's body, according to an Italian autopsy, showed major
signs of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from
a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and
assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among
them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs,
arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body
including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or
awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made
with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive
cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades
made with a hard and hot object; a brain haemorrhage; and a
broken cervical vertebra, which ultimately caused death.
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