CAIRO, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi expressed on Wednesday a strong will to bring justice for murdered Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, stressing full coordination between Egyptian and Italian authorities.
Sisi's remarks came during his meeting with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in the capital Cairo, where they discussed the recent developments of the probe into Regeni's death in Cairo in early 2016, according to an Egyptian presidential spokesman.
The 28-year-old Italian PhD student disappeared in Cairo on Jan. 25, 2016, and his tortured, half-naked body was found nine days later in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital city.
The tragic incident occurred amid intensive security deployment in Cairo and other major cities in Egypt ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
A few weeks later, the Egyptian police said they killed a five-member gang in a shootout in Cairo and found Regeni's handbag, passport and student ID card at the residence of a gang member's relative.
However, this did not seem to have convinced the Italian side which suspected the involvement of Egyptian police, despite repeated denials from Egyptian officials.
The incident strained ties between Cairo and Rome, which recalled its ambassador over the case in April 2016 before relations turned better and Rome sent a new ambassador in September 2017.
In late June, the Egyptian and Italian prosecutors said they found gaps in the recovered footage from inside and outside Cairo metro stations where the murdered Italian man disappeared, with neither videos nor images of him.
The Egyptian president has repeatedly vowed to bring Regeni's murderers to justice, accusing "conspirators" of attempting to ruin Egyptian-Italian relations.
