Egypt minister rejects claims of police involvement in Italian's murder

Egypt's interior minister has rejected claims that Egyptian police were involved in the abduction, torture and murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni, found dead in Cairo last month.

"This did not happen," Magdy Abdel Ghaffar said on Monday when asked if Regeni, a Cambridge University PhD student, had been arrested by the police.

"It is completely unacceptable that such accusations be directed" at the interior ministry, he said.

"This is not Egyptian security policy - Egyptian security has never been accused of such a matter."

Regeni disappeared on 25 January and was found dead on 25 February.

A post-mortem examination held in Italy concluded that he was killed by a violent blow to the base of the skull having already suffered multiple fractures all over his body.

Rights activists and several opposition groups say Regeni, who was doing research on Egyptian trade union movements, had been arrested by the police and tortured.

The diplomatic community and the Italian media have also raised the possibility of torture.

Abdel Ghaffar said Regeni had not been arrested, and his death was "certainly a criminal act".

He said no suspects have yet been arrested. "We are still in the phase of information gathering. This matter needs some time," he said.

Global rights groups have regularly denounced mysterious disappearances of activists, torture and beating of prisoners in Egyptian prisons.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has himself urged security forces to restrain themselves after several cases of custodial deaths emerged in recent months.

Paolo Gentiloni, the Italian foreign minister, said that Egypt appeared to be cooperating with a team of Italian detective and forensic investigators sent to Cairo.

But he warned: "We will not settle for alleged truths."

Gentiloni, in an interview with La Repubblica, added: "We want those really responsible identified and punished on the basis of law."