HUCKSTEP (Egypt) Nov 21: Defendants at a mass trial in a military court pleaded innocent here on Wednesday to charges ranging from forming an illegal group to plotting to kill public officials.

“It didn’t happen,” men shouted from the cages holding 87 Egyptians and foreigners, after the judge read out the charges against them.

Seven other defendants were being tried in absentia.

Prosecutors presented the court with religious and engineering books, a video tape of fighting in Afghanistan as well as an air rifle and baseball bat as evidence.

However, the judge refused to admit the rifle and bat as evidence, prompting applause in the courtroom.

One defendant, who wore a trim Islamic beard, testified later that he needed engineering books because he was an inventor.

Lawyers for the defence, Hafez Abu Saada and Mamduh Ismail, both complained to the judge that copies of the defendants’ interrogation transcripts had been altered.

The lawyers said their clients were charged during their interrogations with providing aid to Palestinians and Chechens, but that names of the aid recipients had been erased on the released court transcripts.

If the documents had not been tampered with, the prosecution would have to admit the defendants are pursuing humanitarian causes that have widespread support in Egypt, the lawyers said.

“It shows the aim and the cause of the group is to collect money, not destroy the (Egyptian) regime,” Abu Saada said.

The trial of the 94 opened Sunday, the first military trial for civilians in two years.

The charge sheet read out in court focuses on a threat to the Egyptian government.

Charges ranged from founding and running an illegal group — named Al-Waad (the Promise) by Egyptian newspapers — and resorting to “terrorism.”

Others charges included encouraging worshippers at mosques to oppose the government, plotting to blow up public buildings as well as assassinating government officials and members of the security services.

Some were charged with having attended military training camps overseas without government permission, as well as having received training in the use of firearms and the making of explosives.—AFP