Egyptian police detained Italian before his murder - sources

An Italian student who was tortured and murdered in Egypt had been detained by police and then transferred to a compound run by Homeland Security the day he vanished, intelligence and police sources say. The claims contradict the official Egyptian account that security services had not arrested him.

Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old postgraduate student, disappeared on January 25, friends say. His body was found on February 3, dumped on the side of a road outside Cairo. It showed signs of torture, according to forensic and prosecution officials in Egypt.

Egyptian officials have strongly denied any involvement in Regeni's death. Soon after his body was found, police suggested he was the victim of a car accident. Weeks later they said he might have been killed by a criminal gang impersonating policemen.

But three Egyptian intelligence officials and three police sources independently told Reuters the police had custody of Regeni at some point before he died.

Asked if Regeni had been taken to the Izbakiya police station in Cairo, as some of the sources asserted, an official in the Interior Ministry said: "We did not issue a statement on this matter."

Mohamed Ibrahim, an official in the...