CAIRO: Although scheduled to be issued yesterday, the administrative court has postponed the final decision on Ayman Nour s early release until July 31, due to his critical health condition. Nour s wife Gamila Ismail told The Daily Star Egypt that postponing the final hearing another three weeks is even better than a quicker final decision taken against Nour s release. We have been waiting for a decision for the past 18 months, so I believe that postponing the issue for a couple of weeks is not too long for us. We will not lose anything if we wait and I feel optimistic about it generally, said Ismail. Nour s defense team has been negotiating with the judge about the possibility of issuing a final decision on the case yesterday, but the judges preferred a further delay to examine the documents and the medical reports submitted by the team. The court said it will not be able to issue a final decision today because the legal wording needs to be refined, a process that requires some time. However, we consider the three-week delay a great achievement that would hopefully close the case once and for all, Amir Salem, Nour s lawyer, told The Daily Star Egypt. Mohsen El Bahnasy, another one of Nour s lawyers, told The Daily Star Egypt that cases of early release are not common in Egypt. It happened only once with one of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, for reasons related to his old age and his critical health. He died two months after the release. He added that the issue is not only about Ayman Nour, an insulin-dependent diabetic, who also suffers from colon problems and is most likely to have blood poisoning, but there are many other prisoners in Egyptian jails who suffer from poor health conditions and are not allowed early release. There are no hospitals in Egyptian prisons, except in Torah prison which lacks proper medical equipment, professional nurses and even doctors.they can t even deal with a patient with flu, said El Bahnasy. According to El Bahnasy, the hospital that deals with Nour s case is not equipped with the minimum medical instrument. He said if it was well-equipped they would not have requested an early release for him to start with. El Bahansy said if Nour is released until he fully recovers, he will return to prison to complete his five-year sentence which began in 2005.
