Italy pressed on arms sale to Egypt amid murder case

Italian lawmakers pressed Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte late Thursday over the planned sale of two frigates to Egypt even though Cairo has refused to hand over suspects in the torture and killing of a graduate student.

A special parliamentary commission investigating the abduction, torture and slaying of Giulio Regeni, who disappeared in Cairo in 2016 while doing academic research, questioned Conte about the perceived lack of progress in the case during a two-hour hearing.

Conte sought to reassure lawmakers that he has repeatedly pressed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in phone calls and in personal meetings, urging that country's authorities to let the truth be determined about who killed Regeni.

Since late 2018, Italian prosecutors have called for Egypt to hand over five intelligence and police service officials and to cooperate in their prosecution in Italy.

Parties in Conte's coalition government, including the populist 5-Star Movement and the center-left Democrats, are questioning the wisdom of going ahead with the sale to Egypt of the two warships, which were built in Italy and at first destined for the Italian navy.

The premier told the panel he would elaborate on how the Egyptian president has responded to his entreaties, but in a closed-door session that followed the open-door hearing.