CAIRO: Egypt’s public prosecutor has freed the country’s best-known political dissident, Ayman Nour, on health grounds, a judicial official told AFP on Wednesday.
“The public prosecutor decided to free Ayman Nour for health reasons, the official said, requesting anonymity.
A security official said Nour, a 44-year-old diabetic, was already at his Cairo home with his wife Gamila, who has fought relentlessly for his release.
Nour, a lawyer, mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran leader President Hosni Mubarak during the 2005 presidential election before being jailed on forgery charges many saw as trumped up.
Washington had been sharply critical of Nour’s arrest and detention and repeatedly called for his release, although US criticism of the case that raised tensions with key regional ally Egypt has died off in recent months.
He came a distant second against Mubarak and was sentenced to five years in jail on charges of forging affidavits needed to set up his political party.
In an interview from jail last year, Nour told AFP he had gone from being a victim of “political assassination to being subjected to “physical destruction, saying the regime wanted him to die behind bars.
In May, Nour was forbidden from publishing newspaper articles from his jail cell. He was already barred from receiving or sending letters, a move his wife described as showing “a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner. -AFP
