CAIRO, 26 December 2003 — An Egyptian security court yesterday delayed sentencing in the trial of 23 Egyptians and three Britons accused of plotting to oust Arab governments, with the defense blaming the postponement on an attack on Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher in Jerusalem.

Britons Reza Pankhurst, Ian Malcolm Nisbett, and Maajid Nawaz, and 23 Egyptians, who have been on trial since October last year, stand accused of belonging to and trying to reactivate the banned Hizb-ut Tahrir Al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party), and aiming to overthrow governments in the region.

The defendants deny charges they called for the establishment of a new Islamic order and have previously said they were tortured.

They are accused of spreading propaganda for the Hizb, which is banned in Egypt but not in Britain.

The court sources said it was not immediately clear why the verdict had been postponed until March 25.

One of the defendants, an Egyptian, has not yet been arrested and is being tried in absentia.

Egyptian officials have said Egypt investigates reports of torture and prosecutes perpetrators.

Security sources said yesterday police had arrested and detained more than 80 other people during the past few days who had previously been investigated in relation to the case. They were later freed without charge.

The sources did not say why they had been rearrested, but added all 80 were Egyptian and were apprehended in Cairo and the coastal city of Alexandria.

An Interior Ministry official told Reuters they had no information on the matter and had issued no statement.

The Egyptian government has arrested and referred hundreds of suspected Muslim militants to military courts since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

The group, which emerged in Jordan in the early 1970s, seeks to restore the caliphate through military coups across the region. The accused face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

In July, the supreme State Security Court said the verdict would be pronounced in December, but the presiding judge declared yesterday that a final decision would be taken on March 25, without giving a reason for the delay.

“It’s clear that there are political reasons for the delay,” 27-year-old British defendant Nawaz told AFP.

Nawaz’s mother said the delay had come as “a surprise, because the British Embassy told us the Egyptian authorities had confirmed” that the verdict would be handed down yesterday.

“It’s possible that the attack on the Egyptian minister (Maher) could be behind the delay,” Homira Nisbett, wife of Nisbett, told AFP.

Maher had to be hospitalized briefly after he was assaulted Monday by extremists, who called him a traitor and threw shoes at him while he visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

“The delayed verdict following the attack on Ahmed Maher worries us, notably because it coincides with the arrests in the past 48 hours of 80 people accused of belonging to the Liberation Party,” said defense lawyer Montasser Al-Zayat.