Two Cambridge academics have release a letter addressed to Egyptian President Abdelfattah al-Sisi, criticising his regime for running a “security campaign which has resulted in mass arbitrary arrests”.

Dr Anne Alexander and Dr Maha Abdelrahman, who both conduct research on the Middle East, said they “note that according to Amnesty International, bodies reporting to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior and the Egyptian Ministry of Defence routinely practice the same kinds of torture that Giulio is reported to have suffered against hundreds of Egyptian citizens each year”.

They wrote that “[t]hose of us who knew of Giulio's disappearance before the discovery of his body were desperately concerned for his safety”.

They called on the Egyptian authorities to "cooperate with an independent and impartial investigation into all instances of forced disappearances, cases of torture and deaths in detention during January and February 2016”, alongside any other investigations into Regeni’s death.

Speaking of Regeni, they said that the academic community has been “enriched by his presence”, and is “diminished by the loss of a young researcher whose work tackled questions which are vitally important to our understanding of contemporary Egyptian society”.

Regeni’s body was found on Wednesday, on the outskirts of Cairo. He has been missing since 25th January.

Speaking after the discovery of the body, Egyptian senior prosecutor Ahmad Nagi said that that the cause of death had not yet been determined.

However, he stated that Regeni’s body was discovered with bruises, knife wounds, and cigarette burns, and that the injuries covered "all of his body, including his face".

Regeni was found naked from the waist down, and Nagi said that he appeared to have suffered a "slow death".

Italian forensics teams are expected to fly to Cairo to assist the Egyptian authorities in their investigations.