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| - The parents of an Italian student murdered in Cairo in 2016 urged Rome Wednesday to recall its ambassador after accusing Egypt of having again failed to answer questions from prosecutors. The body of Giulio Regeni, a 28-year-old Cambridge University doctoral researcher, was found bearing extensive signs of torture. After a Wednesday meeting via computer link, Italian prosecutors said Egyptian officials had merely "made assurances" they were "studying the requests" for more detail about suspects. Italian prosecutors in 2018 named five officials from the Egyptian security forces as suspects in his murder -- a theory rejected by Egypt. Multiple theories put forward by the Egyptian authorities have been rejected by their Italian counterparts. "It's obvious that today's virtual meeting with the Egyptian prosecutor's office was a failure," Regeni's parents Paola and Claudio said in a statement released by their lawyer. "The Egyptians have not provided a single response... despite 14 months having passed since the requests were made," Regeni's parents said. Last month Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he accepted the blame for a failure to extract answers from Egypt over the murder, but defended a controversial deal to sell frigates to Egypt, saying it would help improve relations. Regini's parents said: "Those who claimed that the best strategy towards getting the truth from the Egyptians was... doing business, selling weapons and warships, shaking hands... today know that they have failed. "Recalling the ambassador today is the only way forward," they added. The parents also slammed as "offensive and provocative" a request by Cairo for more details on what Regeni had been doing in Egypt. The student had been researching Egyptian street vendor trade unions, a particularly sensitive political issue. Regeni's body was found February 4, 2016, nine days after he had disappeared. His mother later said it had been so badly mutilated she only recognised her son by the "tip of his nose". ide/lc
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