CAIRO: An administrative court in Egypt on Saturday blocked opposition figure Ayman Nour from running in next month's presidential election, the official news agency Mena reported. The court ruled him out under the terms of a law disqualifying anyone who had been jailed for a six-year period following the end of the sentence or his being pardoned before recovering his right to run for office. He was jailed for five years on charges of having committed fraud and falsified documents to form his political party, the secular and liberal Al Ghad party. He has always denied the accusations. Nour had announced his run for the presidency after the ruling military said at the end of March that it was restoring his full civic rights. Nour's lawyer said he would be appealing the latest ruling, Mena reported. In 2005, Nour won 7.6 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, coming a distant second to Hosni Mubarak, who was finally toppled from power last year. The court's position also calls into question the status of Khairat Al-Shater, who was nominated as the candidate of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won the most seats in parliamentary elections earlier this year. Al-Shater was freed from prison in March 2011 after having been jailed by a military court for seven years on charges of terrorism and money laundering. Separately, earlier Saturday, the electoral commission said that Salafist politician Hazem Abu Ismail would probably be disqualified from running because his late mother was a US citizen. The first round of the election is due to take place on May 23 and 24.
