Red Sea prosecution renews custody of Italian suspect for a week

Mohammed El-Said
3 Min Read

Red Sea General Prosecution renewed on Saturday the custody of the Italian citizen accused of beating to death an Egyptian engineer, for a week, until the translator of the Italian embassy attends the investigations, the victim’s lawyer, Youssef Ali said.

Ali illustrated that there was no investigation on Saturday and it was a session for considering the renewing of custody.

The Italian tourist was arrested on Saturday a week ago and accused of beating to death Egyptian engineer Tarek Al-Henawy in Marsa Alam in the Red Sea governorate, after Al-Henawy prevented him from swimming in an under-construction resort.

On Wednesday, Red Sea General Prosecutor Sherif Tawfik allowed honorary Italian Consul in Hurghada Alberto Barattini and the lawyer of the Italian embassy to visit the Italian suspect in his prison at Al-Qoseir police station, local media reported.

The prosecution allowed them only to read the investigation and refused to let them take a copy of it. He also briefed the Italian consul on the updates of the case, according to local media.

Regarding its previous Facebook post denying the incident, Hadeer Al-Henawy, the daughter of victim Tarek Al-Henawy, told Daily News Egypt that she had written the post before receiving the news of the incident, and her family did not tell her the true story about her father’s death in the beginning, out of fear of shocking her.

On Friday last week, Al-Henawy posted on a Facebook account belonging to her father confirming the death but denying it happened in a fight with the Italian tourist.

The lawyer of the victim told Daily News Egypt that the family of Al-Henawy will go for the litigating to the end, but he refused to comment on the possibilities of handing the Italian suspect over to his government, saying he postpones commenting to that moment.

According to article No. 1 of the law, which was issued by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in November 2014, the president of the state has the right to hand over foreign defendants to their countries in accordance with the high benefit of the state, after being interrogated by the prosecution, and after the agreement of the cabinet.

Furthermore, the Italian government is to return its ambassador to Cairo more than a year after the Italian government recalled its previous ambassador, in light of the murder of one of its nationals in Egypt, according to a statement issued on Monday by Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Angelino Alfano.

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Mohammed El-Said is the Science Editor for the Daily News Egypt with over 8 years of experience as a journalist. His work appeared in the Science Magazine, Nature Middle East, Scientific American Arabic Edition, SciDev and other regional and international media outlets. El-Said graduated with a bachelor's degree and MSc in Human Geography, and he is a PhD candidate in Human Geography at Cairo University. He also had a diploma in media translation from the American University in Cairo.
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