American Couples on Trial for Adoption

American couple Iris Botros, left, and husband Louis Andros, right, who tried to adopt twin orphans...

American couple Iris Botros, left, and husband Louis Andros, right, who tried to adopt twin orphans from Egypt, are seen inside a cage in a courtroom where they faced charges of child trafficking, forging documents and trying to smuggle people out of the country, in Cairo, Egypt, in this March 14, 2009 file photo. In Muslim countries like Egypt adoptions are nearly impossible, snarled in religious tradition and murky laws, and the couple may have been caught up in an attempt by the Egyptian government to show it is cracking down on human trafficking, after criticism from the United States.

(Mohsen Nabil/AP Photo)

An American woman who is being tried with her husband on charges of forgery and child trafficking after they adopted twin orphans said Saturday the trial was part of Egypt's "persecution" against Christians.

Iris Botros, a dual Egyptian citizen, spoke from behind the bars of a metal cage in a Cairo courtroom that also held her American husband, Louis Andros, and another couple that is being tried for adopting a newborn in Egypt. The trial is the first of its kind in the Muslim country, where religious tradition and murky laws make adoption nearly impossible.

In the tangle of the country's regulations and customs, even lawyers are unsure whether adoption is allowed. What is known is that Islamic law forbids adoption, and that is the law applied to Muslims in Egypt. The religion emphasizes maintaining clear bloodlines to ensure lines of patrimony and inheritance.

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The law is far less clear concerning Egypt's Christian minority to which both couples belong. Adoptions within the Christian community — including by Egyptian Christians living abroad — do take place, usually involving a donation to a Christian orphanage. Proponents say this type of adoption is not explicitly banned, but still faces monumental barriers.

"This whole case came because we are Christians," the 40-year-old Botros told The Associated Press during the court's second session Saturday.

"This is all about the Christians' persecution," said Botros, wearing a white prison robe and breaking into tears as she told her story.

Many government officials are resistant to adoption — believing it is not allowed — and Muslim conservatives are opposed because they fear that Christians will adopt Muslim orphans and raise them as Christians.

Botros said the trial will cost her and her 70-year-old husband their house and the Greek restaurant they own in Durham, N.C., where they live.

After years of trying to have a child or adopt in the U.S., the couple traveled to Cairo in the fall and was put in touch with a Coptic Christian orphanage that was caring for two newborn orphans. The orphanage gave them forged documents to say Botros had given birth to the children, and the couple donated $4,600 to the orphanage, said their lawyer, Aameh Saleh.