An Egyptian court Tuesday sentenced 43 nonprofit workers, including the son of the U.S. secretary of transportation and 15 other Americans, to prison in a case against foreign-funded pro-democracy groups.
The ruling and heavy jail time of up to five years deepen worries about the operations of nongovernmental organizations in Egypt as parliament considers a bill proposed by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi that critics warn will profoundly restrict their activities.
The verdict was strongly denounced by the United States, with Secretary of State John Kerry and a host of powerful lawmakers expressing their outrage and berating the trial and the verdict as politically motivated and incompatible with Egypt’s transition to democratic rule.
The defendants were convicted on charges of receiving foreign funds to foment unrest in Egypt. The charges were rooted in claims that the nonprofit groups, which were working in various forms of democracy training, were fueling protests in 2011 against the military, which took power after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in February that year.
The verdict, read out by judge Makram Awad, also ordered the closure of the offices and seizure of the assets in Egypt belonging to the U.S. nonprofit groups and a German organization for which many of the defendants worked. These are the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House, a center for training journalists, and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
All but one of the Americans were sentenced in absentia because they had long left the country, including Sam LaHood, son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He received a five-year jail term.
The only American defendant who remained in Egypt throughout the trial was Robert Becker, who was sentenced to two years. He left on a flight to Rome on Tuesday just hours after the verdict was announced, according to a Cairo airport official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Becker had said he refused to flee with the other Americans before the trial to show solidarity with his Egyptian colleagues.
“I am honored to have stood in a cage for a dozen hearings this past year-and-a-half with my colleagues,” Becker, 44, who was not in the courtroom Tuesday, wrote in a blog entry the night before. “They are my brothers and sisters and personal heroes, and no trial verdict will break that bond.”
Becker’s ex-wife, the Rev. Lisa McGehee, 48, of suburban Richmond, Va., said she was saddened by the conviction but was proud of Becker for standing up for his beliefs.
“As long as I have known him, he will fight for the underdog and for what he believes to be truth,” said McGehee, a minister at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Glen Allen.
McGehee still keeps in touch with Becker and his family but she had not spoken to either since the verdict.
Of the 43 defendants, 27 received five-year jail terms. Another five received two years while 11, all of them Egyptian, got suspended one-year sentences. In Egypt, defendants tried in absentia typically are convicted and receive the maximum sentence for a specific offense. However, if they return and give themselves up, they also get an automatic retrial.
On trial beside the Egyptians and Americans were eight other foreigners, of Serbian, Palestinian, Lebanese, and other nationalities.
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