Egypt acquits 43 NGO workers on illegal funding charges An Egyptian court has acquitted 43 people, including German and U.S. nationals, of charges they illegally received funding for their local and foreign non-governmental groups

CAIRO -- An Egyptian court on Thursday acquitted 43 people, including German and U.S. nationals, of charges they illegally received funding for their local and foreign non-governmental organizations, a move that Amnesty International described as a step in the right direction.

The verdict ended a seven-year legal battle that rattled civil society groups just months after a 2011 uprising forced autocrat Hosni Mubarak to step down after 29 years in power.

A lower court convicted the 43 in 2013. The Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest appeals court, threw out that verdict in April this year and ordered a fresh trial, which culminated in Thursday's ruling. None of the 43 spent time in jail. The only three who received prison terms — up to three years — were tried in absentia.

Egypt's military had claimed that protests against its direct rule between February 2011 and June 2012 were funded by foreigners. It ordered raids on more than a dozen offices of rights and freedom advocacy groups, seizing files and computers.

Amnesty International said the verdict was a step in the right direction, saying it was a "bogus" case that targeted human rights defenders for doing their work.

"However, today's ruling only relates to the first phase of the case which investigated the funding of international organizations; the investigation into local Egyptian NGOs is ongoing and dozens of staff are still at risk," said Najia Bounaim, Amnesty's North Africa campaigns director.

"The key test now will be whether today's court decision paves the way for an end to the persecution of all human rights defenders in the country," it said, calling on the government to lift travel bans and asset freezes against NGO staff and drop investigations into Egyptian NGOs and human rights workers.

Germany also welcomed the verdict, which acquitted two employees of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a pro-democracy and rights group linked to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party.

"They and the foundation are now officially rehabilitated," said a Foreign Ministry statement. "This verdict ends a years-long dispute that weighed on our relations with Egypt."

The Americans involved in the case worked for NGOs that included Freedom House, International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, also welcomed the verdict, saying it was "very big step" in the direction of improving relations with Egypt.

"The accusations have always been baseless. The members of these organizations have served their nation and the people of Egypt honorably in advance of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights - areas in which much work remains," he said in a statement.

Since the NGOs case began in 2011, Egyptian authorities have frozen the assets of at least six rights groups and 10 human rights advocates. At least 30 human rights workers and administrators have been banned from travel. Investigating judges, meanwhile, intermittently call in human rights activists for questioning.

The crackdown on rights groups has been accompanied by a defamation campaign by the pro-government media that portrayed activists behind the 2011 uprising as foreign agents, paid to plunge Egypt into chaos for the benefit of its enemies. General-turned-president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has blamed the uprising for the country's economic woes, labeling it the wrong remedy that followed a misdiagnosis.

Since taking office in 2014, Egypt's democratic transition foundered, with authorities reversing freedoms won in the 2011 uprising, silencing the media and blocking hundreds of independent online news sites. Tens of thousands of Islamists have also been jailed along with scores of pro-democracy advocates.

El-Sissi, whose declared priorities are the economy and security, has recently ordered a revision of a law that placed draconian restrictions on the work of civil society groups, with the intention of reducing the veto power given to security agencies over their work. That task will most likely leave unchanged the restrictions placed on rights and pro-democracy groups, but relax them for medical, housing and social charities.

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Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Berlin.