Giulio Regeni (born on the 15th of January 1988 – 2016) was an Italian Cambridge University graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt. Regeni was a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge, researching Egypt's independent trade unions, and a former employee of the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica. He grew up in Fiumicello, a former comune (now Fiumicello Villa Vicentina) in the Province of Udine in the northeast Italy.

Regeni's mutilated and half-naked corpse was found in a ditch alongside the Cairo-Alexandria highway on the outskirts of Cairo on February 3, 2016. His recovered body showed signs of extreme torture: contusions and abrasions all over from a severe beating; extensive bruising from kicks, punches, and assault with a stick.

The autopsy reports that he was interrogated and tortured for up to seven days at intervals of 10–14 hours before he was finally killed. On March 24, 2016, Egyptian police killed in a shoot out four men who were allegedly responsible for kidnapping Regeni. The gang was said to be specialized in kidnapping foreigners and stealing their money. In a raid on the flat of one of the gang members, the Egyptian police claim they found various items that belonged to Regeni including his passport and student photo IDs. Some journalists report that the "gang" members had been executed, not shot while riding in the van, their link to Regeni was also suspect. Italian news agency ANSA reported that Regeni's tutors at Cambridge University had declined to collaborate with the inquest into his murder, to the disappointment of investigators and Regeni's family.

Due to Regeni's research activities and left-wing political leanings, the Egyptian police is strongly suspected of involvement in his murder in Europe although Egypt's media and government deny this. On April 21, 2016 Reuters reported three Egyptian intelligence officials and three police sources independently claiming Regeni was in police custody at some time before his death. 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 Jan 25th. Both men were then taken in a white minibus with police license plates to Izbakiya police station in downtown Cairo. So the Egyptian National Security Agency had been monitoring Giulio Regeni.

The gruesome torture and murder of Giulio Regeni sparked global outrage 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, while on February 24, 2016, Amnesty International Italy launched a campaign "Verità per Giulio Regeni”.