Video regarding death of an Italian Cambridge University graduate, Giulio Regeni, who was abducted, has been aired by the Egyptian state television showing him being asked for money weeks before his death.

Footage shows the head of a Cairo street vendors' union, Mohamed Abdallah, repeatedly asking for payments for his wife's cancer operation.

The 28-year-old Cambridge University student, who was conducting postgraduate research into trade unions, said academic funding could not pay for personal costs.

Ceoafrica learnt that Mr Abdallah reported him to police a few weeks before he died.

His body was found tortured in a ditch at the beginning of 2016.

No-one has been arrested over Mr Regeni's death, although in March Egyptian authorities said they had found a criminal gang responsible for his kidnapping and murder.

All the gang members were killed in a shoot-out, they said. The reports were branded "implausible" by academics that have criticised the Egyptian authorities.

Egyptian officials have denied any involvement in the student's death. 

The deceased was a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge, researching Egypt's independent trade unions, and was a former employee of the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica.

He grew up in Fiumicello, a comune in the Province of Udine province of northeast Italy.