UPDATE: After a brief session on Tuesday, Oct. 2 — the trial's shortest so far — the trial was adjourned until Nov. 3, when the judge most likely will listen to closing arguments.

Amid the euphoria of the Tahrir Square revolution last year, the US-Egyptian relationship hit a hard bottom when the Egyptian police raided the Cairo offices of 10 NGOs in December, including four American ones — the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists. A total of 43 staffers, of which 19 were American citizens, were accused by mismanaging the NGOs by not filing the registration paperwork fully in accordance with Egyptian law, and therefore receiving illegal money from outside the country and spending it illegally on political campaigns.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, but the trial is still far from over. On Tuesday, October 2, the Cairo Criminal Court will resume, hopefully for the last round of witness testimony. “I have no idea what my schedule is on October 3,” said Robert Becker, one of the two Americans staying in the country fighting the charges, in an interiew to Al-Monitor. “I just want them over. We all want to get our lives back.”

On March 1, when a US military plane took the accused Americans and other foreign nationals away from Egypt, Becker defied the orders of NDI’s Washington, DC bureau to get on the plane. Trusting his innocence of the charges, he made a once-in-a-lifetime decision despite being “scared.” “Two of the four Egyptians charged from NDI worked directly for me,” Becker said. “What kind of a person would say, “I am going off to the US; be safe, best of luck; I hope you don’t get sentenced to six years in prison.”