Cairo: Egypt has rejected an Italian demand to hand over telephone data in connection with the murder of an Italian graduate student outside Cairo which has triggered a crisis between the two countries, an Egyptian prosecutor said on Saturday.
Assistant chief prosecutor Mustafa Sulaiman added that the data are related to phone calls made by people in areas frequented by Italian student Giulio Regeni before he went missing and murdered.
“These recordings cover around one million calls made by thousands of people who have nothing to do with the case that is still in the phase of investigation,” Sulaiman said at a press conference in Cairo.
“The Egyptian side refused this request because it violates the Egyptian constitution and law.”
His remarks came a day after Italy said it was recalling its ambassador to Egypt for “consultations” in a sign of protest after talks between Egyptian and Italian investigators in Rome on the case failed.
Sulaiman led the Egyptian team at the two-day Rome talks.
Regeni, 28, disappeared in Egypt on January 25, on a day that marked the fifth anniversary of a popular uprising against longstanding president Hosni Mubarak.
Regeni’s body was found on a highway outside Cairo on February 3 with signs of torture amid allegations that police were involved, claims denied by Egyptian authorities.
Last month, Egyptian police said they had found his personal belongings with an alleged gang of robbers who were all killed in an exchange of fire with security forces.
Italy refused the Egyptian suggestion that the gang was behind Regeni’s murder and stepped up pressure on Cairo to unravel the riddle of his death.
Regeni was in Egypt doing research on the country’s post-Mubarak trade union movement, an activity that rights groups claimed had landed him in trouble with Egyptian authorities.
