CAIRO: Egypt s attorney general allowed political dissident Ayman Nour on Tuesday to leave the country for medical treatment, a judicial source said.
Nour, a diabetic who was released from jail on health grounds in early February after serving more than three years of a five year sentence, had been barred from leaving Egypt. He is among Egypt s most well-known dissidents and enjoyed support from the US administration when he was jailed in 2005 on corruption charges. He formed his political party Ghad in October 2004 to contest a presidential election the following year against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981. He placed a distant second. After his release, he announced a 10-point program of reform for which he said he would collect signatures across the country, calling for a general strike if the demands went unheeded by April 2010. The demands include an end to emergency laws in the country and the drafting of a new constitution by an elected body within a year. -AFP
