'Govt wants me to die in jail'

2007-01-23 07:33

Cairo - Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nur, whose political career came to a crashing end after he challenged President Hosni Mubarak in elections, now says his arch foe wants him to die behind bars.

Nur said: "I'm going to die in this prison. That's what they want." He had been jailed since December 2005.

The 42-year-old lawyer said he was now paying the price for daring to compete head-to-head with Egypt's leader in the country's first ever multi-candidate presidential elections in 2005.

Today, as parliament considered Mubarak's proposed constitutional amendments aimed at "strengthening political parties", the only legal party to have posed a challenge to the regime had been rendered impotent.

Nur faces a total of 32 charges

Its fiery leader was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and jailed for forging powers of attorney needed to set up his Ghad (Tomorrow) party, a charge widely seen as politically motivated.

But, that was only the beginning. Now, he faced a total of 32 charges for various crimes, all of which he said were fabricated, but could keep him in front of courts and in prison for a long time to come.

He said: "When they arrested me, I understood they were trying to silence me. But now they are refusing to give me treatment, refusing to allow my own doctors to keep track of my medical condition. They are just waiting for me to die."

Nur suffered from diabetes and was insulin dependent. He said he was not receiving proper medical care, resulting in a steep decline in his health as he was ravaged by the symptoms characteristic of the disease.

He said: "I'm losing my eyesight, I have cardiac problems, I have terrible headaches and my bruises and wounds don't heal."

He was showing two open wounds on his legs after a fall over a month ago.

Nur 'speaks in a flat, dispirited tone'

He said he's gone from being a victim of "political assassination" to being subjected to "physical destruction".

Nur received his visitors at the warden's office of the high security Tora Prison in southern Cairo, where most of his visits were conducted under the watchful eye of the warden and a number of his officers. Conversations were held at just above a whisper.

Looking pale and dressed in the required dark blue prison colours, the once dynamic Nur who brought cheering crowds to their feet in political rallies across the country, now spoke in a flat, dispirited tone.

He asked: "They are clearly punishing me. Why didn't they just sentence me to death? Why torture me and humiliate me this way?" On Monday, 22 Egyptian rights groups petitioned Mubarak to reduce Nur's sentence on medical grounds.

The statement read: "The undersigned organisations call on the president of the republic to reduce the sentence of Dr Ayman Nur, to consider the time spent in jail sufficient and to release him.

"What Nur is subjected to in prison is a flagrant violation of human rights."

- AFP