By Jon Hurdle

SCRANTON, Pennsylvania, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The United States is exposing deportees to the risk of torture by accepting the word of foreign governments that prisoners won't be tortured if sent home, lawyers for an Egyptian detainee argued on Thursday.

The U.S. government argues that detainees such as Sameh Khouzam -- a murder suspect who says he was tortured for his religious beliefs -- can be sent back to Egypt without the risk of further torture because it has received "diplomatic assurances" from Egyptian authorities this will not happen.

Khouzam's backers -- including the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued his case in federal court in Scranton, Pennsylvania -- say Egypt has a record of torturing opponents and that diplomatic assurances are no guarantee that he won't be tortured again.

The case is the first U.S. court test of whether the government can legally use such assurances to deport suspects to countries that have a record of torturing opponents.

It follows ongoing criticism that the Bush administration has not forcefully opposed torture, whether through enhanced interrogation techniques at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or through rendition, when prisoners are transferred to countries believed to torture people.

Civil rights organizations argue in the Khouzam case the U.S. government is violating its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty initiated by the United States under former President Bill Clinton.

"The government has provided no evidence that these assurances are reliable," Amrit Singh, a lawyer for the ACLU, told U.S. District Judge Thomas Vanaskie.

Khouzam, a Coptic Christian, fled to the United States in 1998 after being tortured by the Egyptian authorities in an attempt to force him to convert to Islam, according to Monique Beadle, of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, which filed a petition of habeas corpus on his behalf.

Khouzam, in custody in Pennsylvania, has been detained for most of his time in the United States because of Egyptian charges that he is wanted for murder in that country, a charge that the ACLU claims has no foundation. He has been convicted in absentia, Singh told the court.

Judge Vanaskie, who in June issued an emergency stay of Khouzam's removal, asked Singh whether the murder charge did not strengthen the government's argument that Khouzam should be deported to answer that accusation.

"There are serious questions about the evidence that the Egyptian government has brought against him," Singh told the court.

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