Ninety four suspected Islamic extremists have gone on trial in Egypt at a military court on the outskirts of Cairo.

They are accused of setting up an illegal group which planned to use force to overthrow the government.

Most of the defendants are Egyptian but three are from the Russian republic of Dagestan and one from Yemen. Two are said to have trained as pilots.

It is one of the biggest trials of its kind in Egypt for several years, but it has raised human rights concerns, with accusations that defendants were tortured.

Forced to confess

The men appeared, most of them heavily bearded and in traditional white robes, in a cage at the corner of the military court.

Some are accused of having received training with fire arms and explosives and of plotting to assassinate government officials.

All are charged with belonging to a secret organisation working against the state, but some of the men and their relatives said they had been tortured to obtain confessions.

"It's wrong, it's an injustice," said the mother of one defendant.

Other distraught relatives, many of them women in full veils, said the men were behind bars because they were devout and to appease the Americans in the wake of 11 September.

Charges added

Most of the men were arrested in May and initially accused only of collecting donations without a permit for the Palestinian uprising and for Chechnya.

The more serious charges only came later.

A human rights activist defending one of the men said he believed Egypt was trying to show that it still faced a problem with Islamist terrorism in order to justify continued repression.

But the Egyptian government believes its heavy-handed approach has been vindicated by the 11 September terrorist attacks on the US.