Egypt opposition leader freed

2005-03-12 21:18

Cairo - Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nur was freed Saturday, after six weeks in jail that strained Cairo's relations with Washington and turned the politician into a symbol of the movement for democratic reform.

Nur walked free from the central police station in Cairo where he was transferred from the Tura prison on Saturday after Attorney General Maher Abdel Wahed ordered his release on bail.

Nur, who heads the Ghad (Tomorrow) party, walked with his relatives and supporters from the police station to the nearby Bab al-Sharia neighbourhood, a constituency he represents in parliament and where he received a hero's welcome.

"We love you, president!" chanted dozens of his supporters who greeted him upon his return to his bastion.

Nur refused to don his habitual jacket upon his release and symbolically undertook his freedom march still wearing his white prison suit.

In the first issue of his party's weekly newspaper, which is also called Al-Ghad and hit the newsstands on Wednesday, Nur announced his intention to run in this year's presidential elections.

Egypt's attorney general, Maher Abdel Wahed, had ordered Nur's release on bail earlier on Saturday, but Nur initially refused to pay, arguing his detention was politically-motivated.

"At first he refused to pay anything, because he is a political detainee. But we advised to pay the bail and he has accepted," Nur's lawyer Amir Salem said.

Ayman Nur was detained on January 29 on charges of "falsifying official documents".

"The release was ordered because there is no longer any reason for his preventive detention," Abdel Wahed said, adding that a similar order was issued for five of his supporters detained for the same reasons.

"The preventive detention had been ordered in order to allow for an investigation to be carried out in the utmost secrecy and ensure that no evidence was concealed," the attorney general said.

Nur's 45-day preventive detention period was due to expire in two days but the official MENA news agency suggested the release was moved forward after a parliamentary Euro-Mediterranean delegation currently in Cairo planned to mention the jailed politician's case in a statement.

"The Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary assembly's committee on policy, security and human rights accepted to remove a clause demanding the Egyptian authorities reconsider the imprisonment of Ayman Nur in its draft statement on the progress of human rights and democracy in Mediterranean countries," the agency said.

Nur was arrested by security services just days after he met with visiting former American secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who heads a US body to promote democracy.

His arrest coincided with a wave of political changes in the Middle East, manifested in Egypt by growing calls for reform and by opposition to President Hosni Mubarak.

- AFP