tinyurl.com/9sgtb -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/25/MNGCEGD8C61.DTL&type=printable
Egyptian opposition leader sentenced to prison Judge rules he forged papers -- outcry over verdict - Nagwa Hasaan, Daniel Williams, Washington Post Sunday, December 25, 2005 Cairo -- An Egyptian court Saturday sentenced Ayman Nour, the lawyer and politician who challenged President Hosni Mubarak at the polls, to five years in prison on charges of forging petitions. Supporters and human rights groups denounced the conviction as an outrage. When Judge Abdel-Salam Gomaa read the verdict, Nour's wife, Gamila Ismael, led chants of "God is great" and "Down with Hosni Mubarak." Nour, 41, wearing white prison overalls, joined in before he was led away from a courtroom cage in which he was held. His attorney, Amir Salem, said the verdict would be appealed. "This will go into the dustbin of history," Salem shouted. Nour was charged with forging documents required to legally register his Tomorrow Party. In October 2004, the government-controlled party oversight commission approved his petitions without complaint. A few months later, however, prosecutors charged Nour with falsifying scores of papers. He spent six weeks in jail but was released under US pressure. In his written verdict, Gomaa said, "The court does not accept Ayman Nour's defense that the documents were forged by certain parties without his knowledge and with the aim of harming him." The prosecution of Nour attracted the attention of the Bush administration, which recently demanded the trial live up to "international standards." President Bush has prodded Egypt, a staunch US ally among Arab states, to "show the way" to democracy in the Middle East. Bush has publicly praised democracy activists such as Nour, who met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last summer. In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Saturday that the United States was "deeply troubled" by the verdict. "The United States calls upon the Egyptian government to act under the laws of Egypt in the spirit of its professed desire for increased political openness and dialogue within Egyptian society, and out of humanitarian concern, to release Mr Nour from detention," McClellan said. Fady Qady, an official with Human Rights Watch, said, "The sentence proves what we had previously stated, which is that the trial was politicized. The Egyptian government is incapable of accepting the opinion of the other. it was conducted on a political not a procedural basis." The verdict climaxed several months of ups and downs in the democratic opposition's battle with Mubarak, who has been in power a quarter-century. In September, Nour ran against Mubarak in Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential election. Mubarak won more than 80 percent of the vote in a race characterized by low turnout vote and his National Democratic Party's open campaigning for Mubarak inside polling stations. Nour finished second with more than 7 percent of the vote. In last month's parliamentary elections, Nour lost his seat to a ruling-party candidate. He began to receive threatening phone calls, and municipal inspectors began to regularly visit his house to lodge complaints about renovation work. His party split, and Nour accused the rebels of being government stooges. Egyptian commentators predicted he would be found guilty. In 2002, Gomaa convicted human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim of defaming Egypt, though the verdict was later overturned.
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