Egypt not ‘officially notified’ about Italy’s recall of its ambassador: minister

Egypt’s foreign ministry said Friday that the ministry had not yet “been officially notified” about the recalling of Italy’s ambassador to Egypt for consultations, following a series of meetings in Rome between Italian and Egyptian officials investigating the murder of Guilio Regeni in Egypt.

An Egyptian delegation headed to Rome on Wednesday to submit a 2000-page report to chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone on the killing of Regeni, who was found dead in Cairo in February.

The Egyptian foreign ministry’s spokesman, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said the ministry had not yet been informed about the reasons behind the recall, “particularly as no statement has been issued yet regarding the results of the meeting between the Egyptian and Italian investigation teams looking into the case of the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni.”

Abu Zeid added that the ministry is awaiting the return of the Egyptian team “in order to attain their assessment of the results of the meetings, and what could potentially be issued by the Italian side regarding the results of the meetings held in Rome over the past two days.”

The Egyptian foreign ministry’s response comes after Italy said in an official statement that it has decided to recall its ambassador to Cairo for “an urgent evaluation” of what steps to take to “ascertain the truth about the barbaric murder of Giulio Regeni”.

“Italy will stop only when it has the truth,” Italian Prime Minister Renzi said on Facebook after the ambassador was recalled.

Source: Reuters