Prosecutors dramatically upped the ante in the retrial of prominent human rights activist , reports Khaled Dawoud Over two evening sessions this week, state security prosecutors reiterated their charges against prominent human rights activist and sociology professor, , who has been standing a retrial with 27 defendants since late April. Prosecutors accused Ibrahim of embezzlement, receiving foreign funding without government permission, and tarnishing the country's image. Ibrahim, 63, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment last year, while the rest of the defendants received jail terms ranging between one and five years. Eight months into the jail terms, however, the country's highest Court of Cassation overturned the ruling and ordered a retrial, citing procedural irregularities. According to Ibrahim's lawyers, the retrial featured nothing new from the prosecution's side, except for a few more strongly-worded accusations against their client. Observers who have been following the case since it began two years ago, however, were particularly alarmed when Chief State Security Prosecutor Sameh Seif claimed on Sunday that the Ibn Khaldun Centre, established by Ibrahim in 1988, "was on the surface a research centre, but in reality was an intelligence agency run by the first defendant in cooperation with other employees". After his arrest in late June 2000, prosecutors said they were considering charging Ibrahim, who holds a dual Egyptian-American nationality and teaches at the American University in Cairo, with espionage. Although that charge was dropped when the case was referred to trial, Ibrahim's lawyers said they were always worried that it could come up again if their client was acquitted of the other charges. Ibrahim's daughter, Randa, also a lawyer, said Seif's comments regarding Ibn Khaldun being "an intelligence agency", did not worry her because Seif "did not build up on that claim or provide evidence to back it up". Ibrahim, meanwhile, stood silently in the defendant's cage as Seif alleged that the sociologist was not as prominent or a renowned figure as his lawyers and defense witnesses claimed. "Defense witnesses said he was the best professor of sociology," Seif said. "They did not say he was a master of fraud and manipulation." Seif also claimed that virtually nobody in Egypt had heard of Ibrahim prior to his arrest and trial. Ibrahim's lawyers were quick to interrupt Seif at this point, arguing, sarcastically, that it was not their problem that the prosecutor had not watched state-owned television for the more than three years in the mid-1990s that Ibrahim hosted a weekly programme dealing with issues related to development. Ibrahim and the rest of the defendants, mostly employees at Ibn Khaldun, are charged with receiving nearly $280,000 from the European Union to fund a programme aimed at increasing voter awareness. Prosecutors said that receiving the funding violated Military Decree No. 4, issued in 1992, which bans individuals and groups from receiving funds from abroad without government perimission. Seif also accused Ibrahim of embezzlement, and duping the EU by presenting faked documents to justify his expenditures. That included, according to prosecutors, issuing false voting cards to prove to the EU that the project was meeting its goals, and faked receipts. Although EU officials have repeatedly stated that they were satisfied with Ibrahim's work, and that their auditors had not discovered any wrongdoing, the prosecutors continued to press the same charges nonetheless. Seif also accused Ibrahim and the rest of the defendants of "issuing fake reports and rumors about the situation in this country and spreading them abroad". Amongst the evidence allegedly damning Ibrahim was a short documentary he produced as part of the election awareness project. Authorities claimed the documentary -- which included allegations that all elections held in Egypt were rigged -- tarnished the country's image. The prosecutor also attacked Ibrahim for issuing "false" reports on the status of the country's Coptic Christian minority, saying he had made it his "mission and policy" to claim that Copts suffered from discrimination. Concluding its case against Ibrahim by demanding the maximum penalty for the alleged crimes he committed, the prosecution moved on to the rest of the defendants who are standing the retrial. They are, for the most part, accused of embezzlement and issuing false voting cards. One of the workers at Ibn Khaldoun Centre has also been charged with bribing a policeman to issue her a few thousand faked voting cards. Next week Ibrahim's lawyers should begin putting the case for the defence. Randa Ibrahim told Al-Ahram Weekly that the family has hired Awad El-Mor, the former head of the Constitutional Court, to defend her father. She said El-Mor, a law veteran, "will tackle constitutional issues to prove that the charges being made are baseless". Ibrahim's lawyers have maintained since his arrest that the case was political, pursued mainly to punish him for insisting on monitoring elections. The government rejects the monitoring of elections by either local or international non- governmental organisations, considering it an infringement on the state's sovereignty.
