Egyptian TV host says slain Italian student Regeni can ‘get lost’

Cairo: An Egyptian TV host has sparked outrage after saying Giulio Regeni, the Italian student killed in Egypt last January, can “get lost.”

TV host Rania Mahmoud Yassin appeared on a private channel this week complaining about international attention over the killing.

Regeni, a 28-year-old PhD student at Cambridge University was in Egypt researching trade unions at the time of his disappearance in Cairo on Jan. 25. His body was found badly-mutilated and in a ditch on the outskirts of Cairo on Feb. 3.

“Let me speak honestly, the international attention over Regeni – especially from Britain and the US – it leads to only one truth: this is a conspiracy [against Egypt]!

“They’re making us feel like he’s the only person that has ever been killed! So many Egyptians have been killed, so many have disappeared in other countries, mafias have been doing their work, in countries such as Italy. Italy is known to have mafias and the US too. And South America.

“So many people have been killed and we haven’t seen this kind of uproar before. It’s as if he’s the only person to have been killed in Egypt!

“At first I felt sorry for him, sorry that a young man has been killed. Now, he can get lost!”

Egyptian and Italian Twitter users have spoken out against Yassin’s remarks.

It was reported that the Italian student had been detained by police and then transferred to a compound run by Homeland Security the day he vanished, according to intelligence and police sources.

The claims contradict the official Egyptian account that security services had not arrested him.

Authorities initially blamed Regeni’s death on a road accident. A second autopsy, done in Italy, determined that he suffered a fatal fracture of a cervical vertebra, either from a strong blow to the neck or from forced twisting of the neck.

A petition calling for the UK Government to press the case for a full investigation into Regeni’s death has passed 10,000 signatures, requiring the government to respond to the initiative. The British government has previously called for a “full and transparent investigation” into Regeni’s murder, but has not yet responded to the petition.