British citizen Ian Nisbet (middle) holds a paper while he was led to court under tight security

CAIRO, March 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - An Egyptian court Thursday, March 25, sentenced three Britons, a Palestinian and eight Egyptians to five years in prison for an alleged plot against Arab governments and membership in a banned party that calls for restoring the Muslim caliphate through peaceful means.

The high state security court sentenced another 14 Egyptians to between one and three years for links with the same party, Hizb Ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party), reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Wake up Muslims," the defendants, all wearing white, shouted in unison in Arabic. "Iraq came after Palestine and tomorrow whose turn will it be?"

"We're being condemned for our ideas, because we are calling for changing regimes by peaceful means," said Egyptian Ahmed Ibrahim, 37, who was sentenced to five years in jail.

The court's verdicts cannot be appealed but must be ratified by President Hosni Mubarak.

The sentences were handed down as Egypt and other Arab countries faced daily protests over Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in the Palestinian territories.

‘Weak’

The three Britons and some Egyptians admitted belonging to Hizb Al-Tahrir which seeks the re-establishment of the caliphate that existed for hundreds of years until the last century.

"This (verdict) demonstrates that regimes are so weak that they cannot stand anybody speaking," said Majid Nawaz, 26, an Islamic law student at the University of London who was in Egypt for a one-year program.

"This is a victory for our ideas," said Ian Nisbett, 29, who converted to Islam several years ago and came to Egypt to learn Arabic after studying at Westminster University, as his weeping wife held his hand through the cage.

"If they give me 50 years, I wouldn't change my ideas. It shows this is a dictatorship," said Reza Pankhurst, 28, a British computer programmer who lives in Cairo with his parents.

Lawyer Montaser Al-Zayat, who represented the 26 defendants who were arrested in April 2002, told AFP "these are very harsh sentences, especially because there is no appeal."

On Wednesday, March 24, he expected the Britons and some of the other defendants to be acquitted.

Mike Gifford, number two at the British embassy, said "it was a long and difficult trial. We respect the verdict of the court."

Torture

At the first court hearing in October 2002, Pankhurst told reporters from the caged dock that he and other defendants had been subjected to prolonged torture while in custody which prompted them to make confessions they later retracted.

All the defendants pleaded not guilty.

In line with Egyptian law, the court will soon release an explanation of the verdict, detailing the charges for which each was convicted.

Hizb Ut-Tahrir, founded in 1953 by Takieddin Al-Nabahani, a Palestinian scholar,  seeks to put all Muslim nations under one single Islamic state.

Active in London, it developed in several Arab countries as well as in Muslim central Asia.

According to the BBC News Online the party was banned by the Egyptian government after an alleged failed coup in 1974.