Roundup: Egypt says disturbed by Italy's "political" address of Regeni's death

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the country is disturbed by Italy's political address of the case of Italian student Giulio Regeni's death in Cairo, the ministry's spokesman said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry expressed during a phone call with his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni on Saturday that the country is disturbed by "the political direction that the course of dealing with this issue started to take," spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said.

Regeni's half-naked, tortured body was found in early February on a distant roadside in Cairo, nine days after his disappearance in the Egyptian capital city.

The Egyptian statement comes after Italy recalled on Friday its ambassador to Cairo for consultations and also suspended cooperation with the Egyptian side on the probe into Regeni's death.

Italy's diplomatic move followed the visit of an Egyptian delegation to Rome to provide the Italian side with the results of investigation, which did not seem to be satisfactory to the Italians.

"This direction raises questions about the meaning of these decisions," Shukry told Gentiloni during the phone call according to the spokesman. "This comes at a time when a positive spirit of cooperation is supposed to be maintained."

The ambiguous death of Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian PhD student who has been in Egypt for a research, cast shadow on the Italian-Egyptian relations as Italy showed dissatisfaction with the Egyptian probe into the case.

On Saturday, an Egyptian senior prosecutor said that the Egyptian visiting team in Rome rejected Italy's demand of phone records of Egyptian citizens in the areas related to Regeni's death.

"The Egyptian side did not reject the request out of obstinacy or hiding, but in accordance with the Egyptian constitution and law," Assistant Public Prosecutor Mostafa Suleiman told reporters in a press conference Saturday.

He explained that the Italian demand might include a million phone calls and it is illegal to reveal them to a foreign side.

"98 percent of the demands of the Italian side have been met, except for this one of call records because it is against the law," the Egyptian prosecutor explained, stressing Regeni's case is still under investigation.

Meanwhile, the Italian side updated the Egyptian delegation in Rome with their investigation in the disappearance of Egyptian citizen Adel Muawwad in Italy in late 2015, the Egyptian prosecutor said.

In late March, the Egyptian police said it killed a four-member gang and found a fifth dead body with them in van they were driving after a shootout in Cairo, adding they found Regeni's handbag with his passport and student card after searching a residence of one of the members' relatives.

The police stressed the dead gang had a record of kidnapping and robbing foreigners, a narrative that did not appeal to the Italian side whose officials and media point fingers at the Egyptian police that face similar claims of abuses at home. Endit