The Italian parliament has moved towards cutting a key defence contract with Egypt in retaliation for its lack of cooperation with the inquest into the torture and murder of a Cambridge University student.

The Italian parliament voted on Wednesday on the 'Regeni amendment' – a bill to end the provision of spare parts for Egypt's fleet of F16 war planes, in apparent reaction to perceived lack of transparency in the investigation into the murder of Giulio Regeni.

Regeni, a PhD student at Girton College, was researching the independent trade union movement in Egypt when he was brutally murdered. Experts said that the corpse carried the hallmarks of Egyptian state torture.

The decision was taken by the Italian Senate, voting 159 to 55, but must still pass the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. Opposition was voiced by centre-Right politicians like Maurizio Gasparri, who claimed that it was "absurd to deny Egypt parts for aircraft that they are using to combat ISIL".

Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, has repeatedly called on Egypt to cooperate with Italian investigators and has said that his country will not accept “easy truths” on the Regeni case.

The Regeni family have long pressured their government to enact sanctions on the Egyptian government. In June, they went to the European Parliament to call on EU countries, including Britain, to cease relations with Egypt, saying “you don’t kill the children of your friend”.

Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner labelled the couple as inspiring, saying: "Giulio's father Claudio outlined a range of measures he would like to see adopted, including embassies offering sanctuary to witnesses who are currently afraid to speak out."

The couple also threatened to release images of Regeni's mutilated body in an attempt to force progress to be made on the case.

“We have a file of 266 photos which show what happened to Giulio, a real encyclopedia of how torture is practiced in Egypt,” said Mrs Regeni. “We don't want to show them publically because it would mean we had touched rock bottom, but he was a European citizen and the battle for the truth needs to be taken up by Europe.”

In the same week as Regeni's parent's address to the EU, Italy's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mario Giro, sparked more controversy, claiming that the University of Cambridge were "not really cooperating" over the investigation.

He cited concerns about a "negative response" to the recent request by the chief prosecutor in Rome for more information about Regeni's study of Egyptian labour unions. The university strenuously denied all of Giro's complaints and insisted that “the university remains ready to react quickly to any request for assistance from the Italian authorities."