Egypt names Americans facing trial, ties strained

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Egypt on Tuesday released the names of 19 Americans who face trial over foreign funding of activities of their nonprofit groups in Egypt, a case that has soured US-Egypt relations.

One of the 19 is the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Sam LaHood and five other Americans are in Egypt while the others have left, according to a statement from the Egyptian prosecutor's office.

Altogether, 43 people face trials over illegally operating in Egypt and receiving funds from abroad without permission from Egyptian authorities for their human rights and pro-democracy groups.

Egypt charges that they fund and support anti-government protests. The groups deny that.

Washington has reacted angrily to the case, which started with raids on last month on the offices of the groups.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has warned it could jeopardise US aid to Egypt, which amounts to more than USD 1billion a year.

Today the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the US citizens involved in the dispute have been working to build a more democratic society in Egypt and ‘have done absolutely nothing wrong.’ She told CBS This Morning that US officials have been in close touch with the Egyptian government, including ‘in the last days and hours.’

Hillary Clinton said the situation "has serious consequences for our bilateral relationship." Egyptian Cabinet minister Mohammed Amr said the government cannot interfere in the work of the judiciary.

"We are doing our best to contain this but ... we cannot actually exercise any influence on the investigating judges," he reporters at a security conference in Munich, Germany on Monday, before the announcement that charges would be filed against the foreign activists.

The Egyptian investigation into the work of the nonprofit groups is closely linked to the political turmoil that has engulfed the nation since the ouster a year ago of President Hosni Mubarak, a US ally who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years.

Protesters demand that the ruling military council speed up transfer of power to civilians saying that they are an extension of the old regime and that they have mismanaged the country's transitional period. The military took power after Mubarak resigned a year ago. It says it will hand over control after a new president is elected in June.