CAIRO -- Egyptian-American human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years in prison on Monday following a retrial on charges he tarnished Egypt's image abroad.

The sentence against the 63-year-old activist and sociology professor was the same as that which judges handed down at his original trial in May 2001, sparking protests in both the United States and Europe.

"No-one could believe it. I have never in my life seen a scene of so much shock as at that moment," Ibrahim's wife Barbara told AFP after the verdict was handed down in the high state security court.

The timing of the verdict was particularly surprising because, she said, the judge had told the defense on Sunday that he needed weeks to read all the defense documents and that Ibrahim could read a statement in court on Monday.

The Judge, Adel Abdel-Salam Gomaa, also handed down jail terms of up to three years against three of Ibrahim's associates while it gave suspended jail terms to three others, judicial sources and lawyers said.

Twenty-one others who had received suspended sentences in last year's trial were given the same sentences again, and freed, the sources said.

Ibrahim's lawyers said they would appeal his seven-year jail term to the cassation court.

Ibrahim's wife Barbara said her husband had probably been spared hard labor because he was over 60 years old.

Ibrahim, 63, a bespectacled and bearded man who appeared in court behind a cage as is customary in Egyptian courtrooms, as well as 27 codefendants faced the same charges as in the previous trial.

Ibrahim and the others had been charged with tarnishing Egypt's image by "spreading false information abroad" about "supposed electoral frauds" as well as receiving, without official approval, funding from the European Union to finance the activities of the Ibn Khaldun Center, which he directed.

They had also been accused of making false allegations of persecution of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority.

Court sources said the judge had not made clear whether he was convicting the defendants on all counts or just some.

Ibrahim's wife Barbara said she was able to talk to her husband for about 10 minutes after the verdict, before he was led away by a large police escort.

Ibrahim "sat very quietly inside (a holding room) on a bench, and he talked about it as a travesty of justice," she said.

"He said that it shows that this is a regime that has learned nothing from the past. He said he believed that there is still integrity in the high court, so he assumes it will all be overturned," she added.

"But he also feels it's a wakeup call for Egyptians to fight for the kind of government and the kind of legal system they want," Barbara Ibrahim told AFP over the telephone.

She said she was worried about his return to jail after several months of freedom, because his health had declined in the past year.