Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif

Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif (Arabic: مجدي ابراهيم عبد العال شريف‎) (1981 or 1982[1][2]) is an Egyptian military man known for his alleged involvement in the murder of Giulio Regeni. He testified that he had supervised the young man's movements since October 2015 and he concluded that, in his opinion, he was a spy paid by Great Britain.[3][4] On October 14, 2021, a trial against four officials of the Egyptian security services charged with having cruelly tortured and killed Giulio Regeni started in Rome and one of those officials was Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif himself.[5] The remaining three Egyptian officials charged in the trial are general Sabir Tariq and colonels Usham Helmi and Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim.[6]

Italian investigators revealed that Egyptian security officials, accused of being involved in the torture and murder of the Italian student Giulio Regeni at Cairo, had used a friend of Giulio, a student of the University of Cambridge, both to spy on him and to report his movements.[7]

After the kidnapping, Italian investigators also confirmed the allegations against Major Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif, Captain Osan Helmy and three other officers of the Egyptian National Security Agency, also guilty of the March 24, 2016 murder of a local gang, used both to misdirect the investigation and as a scapegoat.[7]

In 2017, a witness stated that he had heard some Egyptian officials discuss the "Italian boy" case in a cafe in Nairobi, Kenya. After observing an exchange of business cards, he understood that the officer who claimed to have been personally involved in the kidnapping and death of Giulio Regeni was Major Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif. According to the report, officials believed that Regeni was a British spy. Italian investigators listened to his witness and considered it very reliabile. The major was already among the suspects and the witness reported hearing how Majdi Ibrahim said that he had to beat and slap the "Italian boy", after throwing him into the police van, although he didn't mention anything about torturing the student.[8][9][10][11]