The trial of the US-Egyptian human rights militant Saad Eddin Ibrahim will open November 18 at Egypt's state security court, Judge Wahid Mahmud of the Cairo Appeals Court said Monday.
Ibrahim, who heads the Ibn Khaldun Center for Human Rights and teaches at the American University in Cairo, faces charges of illegally receiving funds from overseas, of hurting the image of Egypt, falsifying voting cards and trying to bribe officials at state television.
The charges carry heavy sentences, up to forced labor for life.
The date for the trial of 27 others at the same court in the same affair has not yet been announced.
Ibrahim was arrested June 30 before being freed on bail August 10.
At the beginning of October he said he was suspending all his activities, including monitoring the current parliamentary elections for the duration of his trial.
Egypt's parliamentary elections run from October 18 to November 14.
In a statement issued by his family at the end of July, Ibrahim said the real reasons for the trial being mounted against him were his work for free elections, for the Christian Copt minority in Egypt and for women's interests --CAIRO (AFP)
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