CAIRO, 23 March 2005 — Egypt’s prosecutor charged liberal opposition leader Ayman Nour with forgery yesterday and referred his case, which has raised concerns in Washington, to a criminal court.
Egypt’s public prosecutor, Maher Abdel-Wahed, told reporters that Nour, who was released on bail earlier this month, and six others would be referred to the court.
The prosecutor said Nour, leader of the opposition Al-Ghad (tomorrow) Party, was charged with using forged documents when it applied for recognition last year. The party has dismissed the accusations as fabrications. Washington has expressed “very strong concerns” about the case.
Egypt has rejected foreign interference in the case, saying it is a judicial not political matter, and Nour himself has said he does not want foreign intervention. His wife, Gamila Ismail, said Nour had been charged but said he had not yet been informed of details of the charges.
Meanwhile, the NDP said it will halt the use of emergency laws during the multi-candidate presidential elections expected to take place next September. NDP’s Secretary-General and speaker of the Shoura Council Safwat Al-Sherif announced that the country is committed to not implementing the emergency laws on both the candidates and electorates. “We are keen on this step so that people will have no doubt about the honesty of the next elections that will be entirely free,” Safwat stressed.
The emergency law gives security forces sweeping powers to detain suspects without trial for long periods. Continuation of the law had previously been reviewed on a year-by-year basis, but in April 1994 it was extended for a three-year period at the government’s request. It was extended again in 1997.
The government said it needed these laws to fight “terrorism” and militant operations like the 1997 attack in the southern town of Luxor that killed 58 tourists.
The NDP had previously rejected opposition demands to scrap the emergency state, saying is not a priority or a precondition for the political and economic reforms that the party is debating.
