LEAD: 40 face criminal trial over funding of NGOs in Egypt

Feb 5, 2012, 17:02 GMT

Eds: Releads, adds travel ban, official comment =

Cairo/ Munich (dpa) - Egyptian authorities Sunday ordered 40 activists to stand trial on charges of receiving illegal funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), according to state television.

Some 19 of the accused are believed to be American.

The defendants include Egyptian and foreign nationals and will be tried at the Cairo Criminal Court, added the broadcaster, quoting investigators at the Justice Ministry.

No date was given for the start of the trial.

The investigators also ordered travel bans on the defendants, according to the report.

The broadcaster did not specify the nationalities of the defendants. However, Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Fayza Abul Naga said on Sunday they included 19 Americans.

'This decision emphasizes the government's seriousness about exposing the plots of some organizations to strike at Egypt's stability and operating without authorization,' the official added, according to the website of the semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram.

The move is set to anger the United States, which has threatened to withhold 1.3 billion dollars of annual military aid to Egypt over its recent crackdown on NGOs.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday reiterated the position in a meeting with Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany.

Amr said his government had little control over an inquiry into funding for pro-democracy groups in Egypt, which has caused outrage abroad.

In December, Egyptian prosecutors and police raided offices of 17 non-governmental organizations throughout the country, detaining employees and seizing computer files. A German group, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, was among those raided.

The authorities claimed that the organizations had operated without licences and received illegal foreign funding.

Amr, addressing a panel at the conference, argued that the US alliance with Egypt is 'strategic' and the Egyptian government had little control over an independent judicial investigation.

'These groups are under investigation by the judicial authorities, not the executive branch,' he said.

'If you are talking about democracy, this is the division of authorities. We cannot exercise any influence on the judges right now. But I assure you there is no influence from the authorities.'

Workers with the groups, which promote democracy, have been blocked from leaving Egypt. One of those affected is Sam LaHood, the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

US Senator Joseph Lieberman, also sitting on the panel, seemed unmoved by Amr's arguments and said the aid money was at risk so long as the US citizens were prevented from leaving Egypt.

'The current American aid to Egypt simply will not continue,' said Lieberman. 'I hope we will come back in a year and find Egypt is doing better with the revolution than it is now.'

Egypt has been receiving the aid since 1979 when it signed a peace treaty with Israel.