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The final charge, of embezzling funds, seemed particularly silly, since the European Union had insisted all along that the money - which, like all such grants, had been subjected to routine audit - had been properly spent.

If the charges against Saad Eddin seemed flimsy and politically contrived, the unseemly haste with which his judges arrived at their verdict was even more remarkable. There was little pretense of deliberation by the three dark-suited men in a case that involved thousands of pages of documentation and would normally have commanded weeks, if not months, of consideration.

On May 21, 90 minutes after the defense completed its summation and before the defense team had even finished turning over its evidence, the court found Saad Eddin guilty on three of the four charges. He was sentenced to seven years at hard labor, despite his age and his health, which had been deteriorating for some time. Nadia Abdel Nour received two years and was sent to a women's criminal prison.

The other 26 defendants, in what became known as the Ibn Khaldun trial, were given prison sentences of one to five years. (Twenty of these were suspended.) Barring a presidential reprieve or an appeal on procedural grounds, Saad Eddin and his jailed colleagues have limited legal recourse; there is no appealing the substance of a decision delivered by a High Security Court.

Within hours of the verdict, there were shouts of protest from around the world: from human rights organizations - including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and International PEN - the European Union and the United Nations. In meeting after meeting, foreign diplomats have protested to the Egyptian President.

In the United States, the verdict was condemned by the State Department and by the editorial boards of major newspapers, which raised the issue of Egypt's $2 billion annual stipend from Washington. In Congress, Representative Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, circulated a petition in early June calling for President Mubarak to "overturn this miscarriage of justice."

As the professor was led out of the courtroom and returned to Tora prison late that Monday afternoon, it remained unclear precisely why the trial had even taken place. Those of us who attended it -- journalists and foreign diplomats, human rights monitors, intellectuals, lawyers, family and friends -- had received scant edification from the indictment (which had been cobbled together hastily less than two months before the trial began), from the state prosecutors or from Hosni Mubarak's opaque High Security bench.

"The reason that Saad Eddin is in that courtroom has nothing to do with what's on the charge sheet," one Western diplomat remarked to me during the trial. "If the purpose of this exercise is to discredit Saad, Mubarak has achieved his ultimate objective: a chastened Saad Eddin Ibrahim in a demoralized civil society."

It was clear that Saad Eddin had crossed a "red line," but what was it? And what had so provoked the 73-year-old Mubarak that he would risk international censure and opprobrium to teach a lesson to one influential but essentially powerless intellectual? Although it is apparent that the professor's trial was meant to serve as a warning to others, it is less clear who the president's real targets were and why he was seemingly so determined to make a point.

FORMER COMMANDER OF THE EGYPTIAN AIR Force, Hosni Mubarak is now the longest serving president in his country's history, having presented himself to the voters for six-year terms an unprecedented four times. In these referendums -- in which no opposition candidates are permitted to stand and voters have the choice of voting yes or no -- he has garnered, on average, 96 percent of the vote.

When he assumed office, the day after Sadat's assassination, in 1981, Mubarak spoke of limited presidential terms, of opening Egypt to democracy, of his own need for outside help and advice and of the imperative to reform the country's stagnant economy - nearly 70 percent of which was dominated by bloated and inefficient public sector industries.

Mindful of Egypt's status as the second leading recipient of United States aid, after Israel, Mubarak reaffirmed his country's commitment to the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and set to work behind the scenes as a mediator in the continuing quest for Middle East peace. Later, he more than anyone else gave legitimacy to the United States-led coalition in the Persian Gulf war.

Over the years, however, and partly in response to the threat posed by Islamic militants, he began to rescind the limited freedoms he had initially doled out. More recently, vital foreign investment has fallen sharply while the breakdown in the peace process has raised the uncomfortable issue of Egypt's close ties to the country that is Israel's largest and most vocal supporter. In response, his critics say, Mubarak has gravitated more to his security and intelligence services, and grown increasingly out of touch, surrounding himself with sycophants and old military friends.

Whether the president will utimately release Saad Eddin from prison, no one can say. Clearly, though, the Saad Eddin affair is entering a new phase. It is now, in a sense, Hosni Mubarak and his army-backed regime that are on trial, in western capitals and in the court of international public opinion. Yet, even though Washington is working quietly behind the scenes, it is hardly likely to sacrifice its second most important strategic partner in the Middle East to rescue one prominent intellectual from injustice. But the case does shine an uncomfortable spotlight not only on the heavy-handed tactics of a close ally but also, ultimately, on the Mubarak regime's drift from its early promises of democracy and economic reform to a status-quo autocracy concerned mostly with maintaining its grip on power.

The lavish infusion of American aid - which at nearly $50 billion since 1979 follows only tourism as Egypt's leading source of foreign exchange - was meant to buy political stability and, perhaps, at least a token of democracy in a sea of repressive regimes. Yet now, an Egyptian-American intellectual whose greatest crime seemed to be his passionate defense of democracy and civil rights, is languishing in one of Egypt's most notorious high-security prisons.