Italy's ambassador left Egypt today, Egypt's state-run news agency said, two days after Italy said it is recalling its envoy to protest what it described as a lack of cooperation in the investigation of the killing of an Italian student in Cairo.
Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni's body was found nine days after he disappeared on the fifth anniversary of the Jan 25 uprising which toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, when police were out in force to prevent demonstrations. His body bore signs of torture.
Egypt's Interior Ministry has denied security forces had any involvement in the killing.
Senior Egyptian prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said Saturday that Egypt has rejected an Italian request to hand over phone records of mobile subscribers in the district where Regeni resided, saying that doing so would violate privacy laws.
Italy's foreign minister, in Japan for a G-7 ministers meeting, again stressed on Sunday that his government would be studying over the next few days what additional measures to take.
The meetings last week in Rome between Italian and Egyptian investigators "didn't yield the fruits we expected," Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told reporters. Additional measures would be "a signal of dissatisfaction" with Egypt's cooperation in the case, he said.
He added that any steps would be "proportional" and "without unleashing world wars.
