Three Egyptian security officials have been convicted for their involvement in the 2016 kidnapping of an Italian postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

The Italian student, Giulio Regeni, was later found dead with signs of extensive torture.

The three convicted security officials were each sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday, while a fourth defendant was acquitted.

The trial of the security officials was conducted in absentia and they are unlikely to face extradition given the strained relations between Italy and Egypt as a result of the case.

“We achieved this result despite what can be described as less than wholehearted cooperation from the Egyptian authorities,” Rome Chief Prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi told reporters.

Regeni vanished in the Egyptian capital in January 2016. His body was found by the side of a road with broken teeth, cigarette burns and broken bones.

A post-mortem examination revealed that the victim had been tortured, while the Egyptian government has denied any involvement in his death.

The four men, Major Magdi Sharif of the General Intelligence Service, police Colonel Hisham Helmy, Colonel Ather Kamal, a former head of investigations in Cairo, and former state security chief Major General Tarek Sabir, had yet to respond to the allegations against them.

However, Mr Sabir was acquitted.

The judge, on Monday, dismissed the charge of “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder” against Mr Sharif.