A leading Egyptian dissident, Ayman Nour, who was jailed after challenging the country’s longtime president in the 2005 elections, was unexpectedly freed on Wednesday after years of pressure from the US.
Nour’s jailing has troubled Egyptian-US relations for more than three years and his sudden release may be a gesture to improve ties with US President Barack Obama’s new administration.
Nour said from his Cairo home that he learned he was going to be freed only when a car arrived at the prison to take him home.
PHOTO: EPA
“Why they did this is unknown,” he said.
“I am coming out with an open heart and am ready to work and nothing has changed. A lot of things have been put on hold over the past years ... I am ready to make a change in this country,” he said in a telephone interview.
He later told reporters gathered at his home: “I will definitely resume my political activity.”
The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Nour was ordered released for health reasons. Nour has complained of heart and eye problems and his wife petitioned Egyptian courts for his release on health grounds.
Nour, who headed the opposition Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, challenged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in September 2005 presidential elections, but finished a distant second in balloting criticized as flawed and in which most voters stayed away.
Nour, who is in his mid-40s, was convicted on Dec. 24, 2005, of forging signatures on petitions to register the party in 2004. He said he was prosecuted to eliminate him from politics and the argument received wide support among human rights groups.
In August, Nour wrote a letter to Obama, then a presidential candidate, urging him to help Arab reformers push for democracy in the Middle East.
On Wednesday evening, Nour hugged and kissed family members at his packed apartment in an upscale Cairo neighborhood.
His wife, Gamila Ismail, told reporters that she hadn’t known her husband was free until their building’s parking attendant called her on her cellphone and asked her to come home because Nour didn’t have a key.
When she returned home, she said: “I found him praying in front of our doorstep.”
Nour’s release came less than a week after Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit visited Washington as the first Arab foreign minister to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since Obama took office a month ago.
It also comes days after US Senator John Kerry held talks with Mubarak in Cairo. There has been talk in Egypt that Mubarak hopes to visit Washington in April.
Mubarak has not been to Washington in four years because of tension between the two longtime allies over Egypt’s lack of democratic reforms and failure to prevent weapons from being smuggled via border tunnels to the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the US on Wednesday welcomed the decision.
“We welcome this move,” said State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.
He said the US had no prior notification of the release.
“I did not know that we had any advance warning of this. It is welcome nonetheless,” he said.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS