Italy’s top court: murder trial of Egyptians can’t proceed

By FRANCES D’EMILIO
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Italy’s top criminal court has rebuffed prosecutors’ efforts to revive the trial of high-level Egyptian security officials in the torture and slaying of an Italian student. The Court of Cassation ruled in Rome on Friday evening there were no grounds to appeal a lower court decision that the trial couldn’t go forward because the defendants hadn’t received official notification of the charges. Twenty-eight-year-old Giulio Regeni was doing doctoral research on labor unions in Cairo in 2016 when he was abducted, tortured and slain. Family lawyer Alessandra Ballerini called Friday’s decision a “wound for justice for all Italians.” Defense lawyers had successfully argued that the defendants had never been formally notified for lack of their official addresses.