CAIRO, 29 June 2005 — Egyptian presidential candidate Ayman Nour pleaded not guilty to forgery charges yesterday in a trial supporters say is aimed to disrupt his plan to challenge President Hosni Mubarak in September presidential elections. Nour entered his plea from inside a cage in the packed courtroom which was surrounded by hundreds of riot police who jostled with his supporters outside. The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.
Nour is the most prominent opposition politician to declare his intention to challenge Mubarak in Egypt’s first presidential elections, which replace a system of referendums on a single candidate selected by parliament. Mubarak, 77, is expected to seek a fifth six-year term.
Five other defendants in the Nour case, which has aroused US concerns, confessed to charges of forgery, said Amir Salim, head of Nour’s defense team. A sixth is being tried in absentia. Some said in a statement issued by their defense team they were “victims of the lies and deception” of Nour and had acted in good faith.
But members of Nour’s defense team said those defendants had confessed under pressure in what seemed to be an attempt to lighten any sentences against them. “(The confessions) are based on the pressure of the authorities and the security apparatus,” said Mohamed Abdel Wahab, a member of the Ghad and defense team.
Nour, speaking from the cage in which defendants stand in Egyptian courts, told journalists that he, witnesses for the defense and his defense team, had earlier been blocked from entering the court by police.
“They think that putting me inside this cage will negatively effect me in the election campaign,” Nour told reporters. He said the trial would instead boost his popularity. “I tell them: the price of my entering this cage will be success in the presidential elections.”
“I know that the whole thing is fabricated and I know that I might end up in prison,” said Nour. “But this battle is not going to end here ... if they claim that I have forget my party’s papers, I have strong evidence that the regime has been forging for the past 50 years and they deceived millions of Egyptians,” he told reporters.
“This is the biggest political conspiracy in the country and the government wants to kill Al Ghad party,” said Nour said before the trial. “There was no need for me to forge thousands of documents if I only need 60 application papers.”
Nour supporters surrounded by riot police filled the area around the court. Police closed the road outside the courthouse, where Nour supporters also protested against the trial and called for his release.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood group said yesterday it was inviting opposition groups to a conference to set up a permanent alliance to push for political reform in the Arab world’s most populous nation. The conference tomorrow could form the basis for the broad opposition front the Islamist group has been trying to build to campaign for political freedoms and enable the Brotherhood to play a full part in national politics.
The Brotherhood is probably the country’s largest opposition group but the government refuses to recognize it or allow it to compete in elections as a political party.
The Brotherhood said it had invited prominent members of the liberal Wafd Party and the leftist Tagammu Party to take part in the founding National Alliance for Reform and Change conference, along with newer groups such as the Kefaya (Enough) Movement.
It will submit to the conference the conclusions of three workshops the organization has held in recent weeks with civil society groups, intellectuals and politicians, Brotherhood deputy leader Mohamed Habib told Reuters.
The Brotherhood statement said the alliance’s demands will include the peaceful rotation of power, an independent judiciary and the freedom to form political parties.
