ROME (Reuters) - Italy's top court ruled on Wednesday that the trial of four Egyptian security officials over the disappearance and murder of an Italian student could go ahead, despite concerns the defendants did not know they had been charged.
Reviewing the issue, Italy's top court said in a statement that the legal code relating to this question was unconstitutional given the lack of cooperation from the suspects' home state, opening the way for the trial to resume.
Giulio Regeni, a postgraduate student at Britain's Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016.
Italian and Egyptian prosecutors investigated the case together, but the two sides later fell out and came to very different conclusions.
Italy's legal system is notoriously slow and there was no immediate indication of when the trial might resume.
Persons:
Francesco Lo Voi, Giulio Regeni, Magdi Sharif, Tarek Sabir, Hisham Helmy, Ather Kamal, Sharif, Crispian Balmer, Marco Carta, Bill Berkrot
Organizations:
Britain's Cambridge University, Egypt's General Intelligence
Locations:
ROME, Rome, Cairo, Cairo city, Italian, Italy