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1/6/2002
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EOHR calls the General-Prosecutor to postpone the termed penalty against Dr. Ayman Nour
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24/12/2005
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is anxious towards the sentence issued by South Cairo Criminal Court in Trial 169 [2005] closed in Supreme State Security Court, in which the Criminal Court sentenced five-years jail term for Dr. Ayman Nour, al-Ghad Party Chairman and a former member of People's Assembly.
With regard to Nour's deteriorating health status, EOHR calls the General-Prosecutor to postpone the termed penalty until appeal procedures will be held before the Court of Cassation, in which the term of Article 486 states 'If the defendant who is sentenced in a trial that abstracts his freedom suffers from a crucial disease has a risk on his life, then the penalty must be postponed'.
The trial started its first steps on January 2005, in which Nour was arrested in the trial of manipulating the official papers of al-Ghad Party. The arrest procedure didn't take a lot of time, immediately after arrest, Nour didn't have the chance to defend himself or having any discussions. Later he was arrested after leaving People's Assembly on (29/1/2005), he was subjected to ill treatment inside jail for 45 days, also he was tortured during investigation, and then he was released on March 2005.
After a couple of months later Cairo Criminal Court on (5 /12 /2005) jailed Nour until the date of the prosecution session (10 /12 /2005). The court again postponed the pronouncement to (24 /12 /2005); Nour then started a hunger strike - before two days from the last prosecution session- despite being a patient of hypertension, diabetes and gastric ulcer.
Despite EOHR's respect to the verdicts of the Egyptian Judiciary, it feels uncertain of the fairness of judiciary and its capability to maintain a fair trial based on international human rights covenants and the Egyptian Constitution.
On this pretext, EOHR comments on some drawbacks in the court's procedures:
1) The court legated Supreme State Security Prosecution to examine the trial instead of the General Prosecution, despite the fact that forgery trials are not one of the trials examined before Supreme State Security Prosecution.
2) The court didn't respect the rules which must be undertaken in examining the trial, in which the authority responsible for determining the place where the trials examined is the General Assembly, but in Dr. Nour's trial the head of the Criminal Court is the one who selected the constituency, finally the decision taken for lifting parliamentary immunity off Dr. Nour contradict with People's Assembly's internal charter.
Regarding Court of Cassation's role in examining the appeal, EOHR calls the General Prosecutor to postpone the penalty of imprisonment which is guaranteed by Article 486 of [Criminal Procedures Law] until Nour's health status get better and the court appeal against the verdict and re examine the trial.
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