CAIRO: Opposition leader Ayman Nour was released from hospital and returned to his home after being attacked outside his residence Friday night.
Shady El-Adl, an aide to Nour, told Daily News Egypt that Nour was leaving his apartment in Zamalek heading to his office downtown and was in his car with the window rolled down when two assailants pulled alongside him on a motorcycle and set fire to the spray from a gas canister aiming it at Nour.
Nour checked into Al-Risala hospital in Mohandiseen after the attack. He suffered first-degree facial burns as well as burns to his hair in the attack which took place at 8:30 pm.
Nour’s lawyer Osama Abdel-Moneim told Daily News Egypt that they filed a complaint about the incident Saturday at the Gezira police station in Zamalek. The complaint was numbered 24 for May 23, 2009.
Police went to the site of the attack and conducted investigations.
“We did not accuse anyone in the complaint because Nour didn’t manage to catch the faces of the assailants, Abdel-Moneim said.
Wael Nawara of Al-Ghad party told Daily News Egypt that as of yet they did not suspect anyone specifically to be behind the attack. “It is sad that something like this could happen to an opposition leader, he said.
Since his early release from prison on health grounds earlier this year, Nour has been subject to much pressure when it became evident he would continue his political activity. In April he was officially disbarred from the Lawyers’ Syndicate for being convicted of a “dishonorable crime.
Nour had served four years in prison on charges of forging signatures to form his party, Al-Ghad, charges which he vehemently denies. He was runner-up in the first contested Presidential elections in Egypt in 2005, shortly after which he was arrested.
Nour told Daily News Egypt in a previous interview that he would continue with his political agenda no matter what befalls him.
“I will not leave the scene and escape, I live in Egypt and I will fight in Egypt. They prevented me from my career but now I have time to do work that if they knew about, they would not have made this mistake, he said.
