Yehia Ghanem had not even spent a day on the job as a consultant for the US-based International Center for Journalists when he found himself wrapped up in a high-profile government investigation into the foreign funding of civil society groups in Egypt.<br /><br />Now Ghanem and 13 other Egyptians are on trial, facing charges of operating without license and illegally receiving foreign funds. And they're on their own: the 13 Americans and other foreigners who had been charged and banned from leaving Egypt were abruptly allowed to fly out of the country on March 1 after the United States negotiated a deal with the Egyptian government. Only one American voluntarily remained.<br /><br />That disappointed Ghanem, who hoped the foreign defendants would shine a light on what he says is the unfair prosecution, and it has incensed many other Egyptians who view the deal as an embarrassment and an infringement on the judiciary's independence.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reports from Cairo.
