Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court Monday sentenced a prominent Egyptian-U.S. civil rights activist to seven years in jail after finding him guilty of defaming Egypt in his rights reports, court sources said.

The state security court found Saadeddin Ibrahim, a 62-year-old sociology professor, guilty of all charges laid against him when the high-profile trial began in November.

They include illegally receiving funds from the European Commission to monitor parliamentary elections, offering bribes to forge official documents and defaming Egypt via rights reports on relations between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.

Twenty employees of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Social Development Studies, a Cairo-based civil rights groups run by Ibrahim, were given sentences of one to five years. Seven others each received a one-year suspended sentence.

They were found guilty of various charges of forging official documents, offering and taking bribes, and helping Ibrahim, who has dual Egyptian-U.S. nationality, defame Egypt in his studies.