CAIRO, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Ayman Nour, Egypt's most prominent political dissident and a one-time presidential candidate, was unexpectedly a free man Thursday.
A charismatic political leader who challenged the governing parties' monopoly on power, said his more than three years in prison came to an abrupt end when he was taken from his cell late Wednesday and driven home. It all came, he told The New York Times, without warning,
Nour told the Voice of America he would immediately resume leadership of his Al-Ghad party and continue his work in politics.
"It is a surprise!' he said. "There was no prior plan for it and there were no negotiations over anything."
In a one-line statement, Egypt's attorney general, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, announced that nine prisoners, including Nour, had been released for "medical reasons." For more than three years, the courts repeatedly refused Nour's request to be released because of poor health.
Nour was convicted in 2005 of forging signatures on petitions he had filed to create his party. The case was widely seen as politically inspired, the Times reported. He only needed 50 signatures but turned in thousands.
Nour garnered 600,000 votes in his bid for the presidency in 2005, placing a distant second behind Hosni Mubarak.
