The panel of judges of the trial of 43 Egyptian and foreign NGO workers withdrew from the case causing more controversy on US-Egyptian relations, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky All three judges of the trial of NGO employees accused of receiving illegal funding pulled out of the case on Tuesday, only two days after the first session of the trial. Presiding Judge Mohamed Shukri said Tuesday that "the court felt discomfort" in handling the case. He did not elaborate. The trial would need to be restarted with a new panel of judges. "A new panel will be assigned to the case as soon as possible," said judge Abdel-Moez Ibrahim, the head of the Cairo Criminal Court. The trial opened on Sunday only to be adjourned to 26 April, upon the request of the lawyers of the defendants. Ibrahim said that it is common for judges to withdraw from cases due to feelings of discomfort, pressure or if they have connections to any of the defendants. He denied media reports that indicated that Shukri relinquished the case after he received information that the US embassy in Cairo interfered in the case and practised pressures on the Egyptian government. However, leaked reports to the media claim that there was pressure on the judges to lift the ban on the defendants' right to travel, something they utterly refused because it will give them the opportunity to escape. Of the 43 defendants in the case, 16 are American, 16 Egyptian while the others are German, Palestinian, Serb and Jordanian. Of the 16 Americans, seven have been banned from leaving Egypt, among them Sam LaHood, son of US Transport Secretary Ray LaHood. The 43 worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House, International Centre For Journalists (ICFJ) and the German Konrad Adeneur Foundation. The first session of the trial quickly turned into a free for all as several hundred lawyers and journalists crowded into a small Cairo Criminal Court courtroom. Judge Shukri had to step out for 15 minutes after chaos erupted in the courtroom. Shukri threatened to ban media representatives from the court if they continued to disrupt proceedings. In his statement, the prosecutor urged the court to hand the maximum sentences available -- five years imprisonment -- to the defendants. "Their activity amounted to an infringement of the sovereignty of the state of Egypt," prosecutor Abdallah Yassin told the court. The list of charges Yassin read included receiving and accepting funds from a non-Egyptian organisation in order to commit crimes prescribed under Article 98(C)/1 of the Egyptian Penal Code. The NGO workers also were charged with receiving $50 million in illegal donations between February and September 2011, while the organisations they worked for are accused of operating without a licence from the Egyptian government. Defence lawyers asked the court to adjourn the trial to give them enough time to prepare their case. Shukri agreed, granting two months' deferral to allow lawyers to read case files said to amount to 1,500 pages, and for the authorities to find translators to enable non-Arabic speaking defendants to follow the trial. None of the Americans appeared in court for the hearing. Of the 13 Egyptians who showed up, several told Al-Ahram Weekly that they were attending court voluntarily and had not received an official request from the prosecutor-general asking they attend the trial. The defendants were held in the court dock before the session began, though Shukri said they would not be detained for the duration of the case. Chants by activists who attended the session filled the courtroom with "Down, down with military rule" they chanted, only to receive the response -- "long live the Egyptian army" -- from one attendee. Lawyers say the defendants could be looking at prison sentences from six months to five years in prison if found guilty. Defence lawyer Negad El-Borai told the Weekly that the prosecution case lacked solid evidence and the indictment submitted by the investigating committee was confused. "The only viable charge is that the defendants were working without a licence from the Egyptian government which is hardly a serious matter under Egyptian law," said El-Borai. He argued that the Egyptian media was guilty of a systematic campaign of defamation as it sought to portray the defendants as "foreign agents and spies" when "the only thing they wanted to do was serve their country". Outside the court house, a small group of protesters had gathered to demand the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a former leader of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya who is serving a life sentence in the US, demanding that the American defendants be used in a prisoner exchange. Last week US officials softened their rhetoric over the case. Threats to cut $1.3 billion of military aid to Egypt were noticeably absent. The change in Washington's language followed a meeting between US Senator John McCain and Egypt's ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi in Cairo last week. McCain said after the meeting that Egypt's military rulers had reassured him that the authorities were working "diligently" to resolve the case. After the first session of the trial US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that American officials were reviewing developments. "We are evaluating the outcomes of the legal proceeding today. We'll have more to say after we have finished that analysis and gathered as much information as possible," Clinton told reporters during a visit to the Moroccan capital, Rabat. She added that Egypt was an important ally and the strength of ties was sufficient to contain the crisis. "I don't want to go making this a dramatic confrontation, it's a problem and we have problems with a lot of our friends around the world. We're trying to resolve it." Clinton declined to comment on legal questions related to the case, saying she trusted the Egyptian judicial system and the Egyptian leadership to resolve the crisis. In Washington US Assistant Secretary Jeffrey D Feltman held a meeting with Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shukri which he said came as part of the adminstration's ongoing engagement with the Egyptian government to resolve the "current situation as quickly as possible".
