CAIRO: Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud shelved Thursday a complaint submitted by 20 members of the Organization for Defending Police and Citizens against Al-Ghad party president Ayman Nour, accusing him of inciting the public “to hate” Gamal Mubarak. The organization members further accused Nour, also the opposition party's founder, of defamation and attempting to deprive President Hosni Mubarak's 47-year old son of his constitutional right to run in the next presidential election. In a statement, Mahmoud said that the issue of running in the presidential race has not been brought up yet, “which makes this complaint or any similar ones irrelevant.” As for the defamation charges, Mahmoud noted that nobody other than Mubarak, the son, has the right to complain unless the complainant has a power of attorney to act on his behalf. “The public prosecutor's decision is consistent with logic and reason,” Nour told Daily News Egypt Friday. Nour described the compliant as “stupid and illegal.” “I confessed that I did all what they charged me with…and I said I was ready to present evidence that Gamal Mubarak is not qualified to rule Egypt. But the prosecutor was quite wise to shelve the complaint and avoid me going through this process,” Nour added. Earlier this month, Al-Ghad opposition party launched a counter campaign to the “The Popular Coalition to Support Gamal Mubarak” for the presidency in the 2011 elections. The campaign adopted the slogan “Egypt is Too Big For You” and was joined by a number of opposition groups and parties including the Constitutional Party, the Kefaya Movement for Change and Youths for Change. “The campaign is not against Gamal Mubarak as a person. Rather, it is against the idea of pleading for his approval to rule Egypt,” Nour previously told Daily News Egypt. “This is very humiliating to the … Egyptian people who are far greater than this,” he added. Led by Leftist Tagammu Party member Magdy El-Kurdy, the pro-Gamal Mubarak campaign drew wide criticism from opposition groups and parties, some of whom interpreted it as a means to rally support for Mubarak in his father's lifetime. Wall posters that put forward Mubarak, the son, as a potential candidate for the 2011 presidential poll were spotted end of July on walls in some lower-income neighborhoods carrying the slogan “Gamal…Egypt,” followed by new ones that read “Gamal for All Egyptians.” In 2005, Nour ran for the presidential elections and a few months later, was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly forging powers of attorney required to start his new party, charges he claimed were politically motivated. Nour was released in February 2009 on medical grounds. Even though he is legally banned from practicing any political activity for five years after he completes his sentence, Nour recently announced his intention to run for president in 2011.
