Regeni's killing attracted national and international attention, sparking a heated political debate on the involvement of the Egyptian government itself in the affair and in the subsequent coverups through one of its security services.

According to the European Parliament, the murder of Regeni was not an isolated event but was part of a context of torture, deaths in prison, and forced disappearances that occurred throughout Egypt during the 2010s.

[2][3][4] He was a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge,[5] researching Egypt's independent trade unions, and was also a former employee of the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica.

[8] His body reported contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and assault with a stick; more than two dozen bone fractures, among them seven broken ribs, all fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms, and shoulder blades; multiple stab wounds on the body including the soles of the feet, possibly from an ice pick or awl-like instrument; numerous cuts over the entire body made with a sharp instrument suspected to be a razor; extensive cigarette burns; a larger burn mark between the shoulder blades made with a hard and hot object; a brain hemorrhage; and a cervical fracture, which ultimately caused his death.

[18] This had been anticipated by coverage in the Italian weekly L'Espresso on 7 June 2016, which reported that Regeni's tutor Maha Abdelrahman had followed advice from University lawyers not to collaborate with the inquest.

[22] Following the controversy that played out in the media,[23] Abdelrahman eventually agreed to be questioned by Italian authorities and received praises from Angelino Alfano, Italy's then Minister of Foreign Affairs, for having chosen to cooperate.

[24] In November 2020, Italian magistrates concluded the investigation into Regeni's torture and death, charging five Egyptian security officials as suspects in the case.

According to these sources, he was picked up by plainclothes police officers near Gamal Abdel Nasser metro station together with another Egyptian man on the evening of 25 January 2016.

Surveillance footage from the subway station near Regeni’s apartment had been deleted; requests for metadata from millions of phone calls were refused on the grounds that it would compromise the constitutional rights of Egyptian citizens.

[35] On 21 December 2017, the Italian investigators led by Giuseppe Pignatone flew to Cairo to meet the Egyptian prosecutor Nabel Sadek and his team.

For the kidnapping, they reiterated and pinpointed the allegations against Major Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif, Captain Osan Helmy, and three other people of Egypt's National Security Agency.

After spying on an exchange of business cards, he heard that the officer who claimed to have been personally involved in Regeni's kidnapping and death was in fact the then 35-years-old Major Majdi Ibrahim Abdel-Al Sharif.

[47] Regeni's torture and killing sparked global outrage,[48] with more than 4,600 academics signing a petition calling for an investigation into his death and into the many disappearances that take place in Egypt each month.

[53] On 10 March 2016, the European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a motion for a resolution condemning Regeni's torture and killing and the ongoing human rights abuses of the el-Sisi government in Egypt.

[55] In a 14 April 2016 editorial, The New York Times attacked France, calling the silence in the face of Italy's requests to put pressure on Egypt "shameful".

[56] In May 2016, Italian weekly magazine L'Espresso set up a secure platform based on GlobaLeaks technology to collect testimonials about torture and human rights abuse from Egyptian whistleblowers, and to seek justice for Regeni and for murder victims in Egypt.