CAIRO, 25 December 2005 — The Nasr City Criminal Court yesterday sentenced Ayman Nour, leader of the opposition Ghad party, to five years’ imprisonment for the forgery of documents required for the establishment of this new political party in 2004.
The verdict marks the conclusion of the extended judicial procedures which spanned the entirety of 2005, and which had drawn international attention to the trial of Nour and the case of Ghad.
Nour, one of 10 contenders in Egypt’s first contested presidential election on Sept. 7, received the second highest number of votes — second only to President Hosni Mubarak. Nour was considered to be a rising political star at the beginning of 2005, yet failed to maintain his seat in Parliament during the legislative elections held in October.
Judge Abdel Salam Gomaa, wrote in his ruling: “The court rejects Ayman Nour’s defense that the documents were forged by certain parties without his knowledge and with the aim of harming him.”
Judge Gomaa also wrote that “Nour must have been aware of the forgeries because copies of the forged documents were found at his residence, and he had, furthermore, ordered his aides to throw out copies stored at his office.”
Amir Salem, Nour’s lawyer, declared that “this trial is a politically motivated attempt against Egypt’s greatest opposition figure.” Salem added that Nour is in no way involved with any of the allegations of signature forgery, although he did make references to the possible implication of Nour’s secretaries in acts of forging official documents.
The criminal court sentenced all six other defendants on charges of forgery and fraud. Ghad party secretaries Ayman Ismael and Ismael Zakariya were sentenced to five years in prison, while Ahmed Abdel Shafi El-Gheryani, Lotfi El-Shenawi, and Mervat Saber each received three-year sentences. Farag Shadid Abdel Hamid was tried in absentia receiving a steep ten-year prison sentence.
