Egypt: Presidential candidate on trial for forgery

Egypt’s leading opposition candidate for president went on trial today as hundreds of his supporters swarmed the court building denouncing the charges against him as a government attempt to eliminate him as a rival.

The prosecution of Ayman Nour on forgery charges has drawn the attention of the US as Washington presses its closest Mideast ally to allow greater democratic change.

His detention for more than a month earlier this year sparked tensions between Egypt and the US, and last week US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Nour among a group of pro-reform politicians.

“Justice for Ayman Nour!” hundreds of followers chanted on the steps of a Cairo courthouse, waving flags in the orange colours of Nour’s opposition al-Ghad Party, as Nour arrived. Some nearly lifted him off his feet, shouting: “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.”

More than 1,000 riot police mounted cordons around the court, and amid the crush of supporters and police it took Nour more than an hour to get inside.

Security guards initially barred him from entering with his supporters, but eventually relented. Some 500 Nour supporters barged into the building as nearly 1,000 more continued to demonstrate outside.

Nour is accused of forging 1,400 signatures to get his al-Ghad, or Tomorrow, party licensed last year. He has denied the charges.

“A crime has been fabricated, and a situation by which the authorities can benefit has been created either to pressure me, or to try to obstruct my election campaign or to tarnish my image before the voters,” he told said.

In the courtroom today, Nour – wearing a dark suit and tie – sat in the caged dock alongside six other men charged with being part of the forging conspiracy. Nour has said he has never met five of the other defendants. US Embassy diplomats were attending the court’s session.

“This is the worst beginning of a trial, this is a prison and not a court house,” he said in the court, complaining of the security’s initial refusal to let him in.

If convicted, Nour would lose his right to run for office and could face a prison term of up to 15 years.

The judges’ panel is headed by Abdel Salam Gomaa, a strict judge who sentenced US-Egyptian democracy advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim to seven years in prison in 2001. Ibrahim later won an appeal and was acquitted.

Nour is the most prominent figure to announce his intention to run for president in September elections, the first to be opened to competitors to President Hosni Mubarak. Though he hasn’t yet formally announced he’s in the race, Mubarak is widely expected to run for a fifth term in office.

Mubarak’s government has touted the open election as a major democratic reform after decades of referendums in which the president stood as the sole candidates.

Pro-democracy activists, however, have cited the Nour trial as one example of how the election is still stacked against any challenger, saying the reform will not change Mubarak’s long-unquestioned hold on power.

Nour, along with a handful of other reformers, met with Rice last week. During her visit, Rice called on Egypt to be a model of reform for the region- cancelling emergency laws, and eliminating “arbitrary justice”.

Nour said that, in their meeting, Rice said she was closely following developments in Egypt, but didn’t specifically discuss his case.