Egyptian court orders detention for Nour
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-06 08:58

A court ordered the detention of the runner-up in Egypt's presidential elections, Ayman Nour, and his five fellow defendants Monday as their trial on forgery charges approached its end.

Judge Abdel Salam Gomaa gave no reason for ruling that Nour, who faces a maximum 15-year sentence if convicted, and the other five should be held in prison, but Egyptian judges often make such orders when a guilty verdict is looming. The six have been free on bail since March.

All six pleaded not guilty to forging signatures on the petition that Nour filed last year to secure the registration of his al-Ghad Party.

The defense team asked the court Monday to postpone the trial for further concluding arguments. The judge granted the adjournment until Saturday but ordered the defendants to be held in custody.

Ayman Nour greets a crowd before a speech in Tanta, north of Cairo, August 23, 2005.[Reuters/file]

Of the detention order, Amir Salem, Nour's chief defense lawyer, said: "This decision reveals the judge's bad intentions, as they are banned from leaving the country, so today's decision means he will sentence them."

Nour's wife, Gamila Ismail, voiced similar concerns.

"It's very clear that the judge has a ready verdict regardless of the trial proceedings," she told The Associated Press. She said she was trying to find where he had been taken to in order to take him his medication. Nour, who turned 41 on Monday, is diabetic and suffers from high blood pressure.

Nour finished second to President Hosni Mubarak in the presidential elections in September, but he lost his seat in the first round of the parliamentary elections last month, a result he has appealed.

His arrest on forgery charges on Jan. 29, and his detention for 42 days, strained Egypt's relations between the United States and Egypt. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a visit to Egypt in March and, when she came in June, met Nour and other opposition figures.

Nour has said he did not even know some of the other defendants before the trial began in late June. One of the defendants recanted his testimony in court, saying security agents had threatened his family to force him to implicate Nour.