Egyptian dissident burned in "planned" attack

May 24, 2009, 7:19 GMT

Cairo - A young man on a motorcycle attacked leading Egyptian opposition figure Ayman Nour near his home in Cairo, the former politician said Sunday morning.

'A young man of perhaps 17 years old, he couldn't have been more than 20, drove by on a motorcycle and attacked me with a jet of burning gas as I was leaving my home last night,' Nour told the German Press Agency dpa. 'My face and my hair were burned.'

'It was clear the attack was planned,' Nour said. 'I made a police complaint. I'm calling for a complete investigation, that's all.'

Nour spent four years in prison after running against Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in the 2005 elections. He was released in February for health reasons on the condition that he stay away from politics.

On Saturday, the independent Cairo daily al-Masry al-Youm quoted Nour as saying he planned to run in the next presidential elections in 2011, saying he 'still had a few cards' that he would play 'when the time was right.'

The daily said Nour made the comments while touring the streets of the northern Egyptian city of Port Said, meeting people, shaking hands and, reportedly, standing up to a police general who asked him what he was doing.

Nour had also recently been quoted in the media as saying that he preferred to be returned to prison than to be forced to live with the restrictions placed on him as a condition of his release.

A Cairo court is scheduled to rule on the disputed leadership of the Ghad (Tomorrow) Party on June 16. Nour founded the party in 2004 with an eye toward running in the presidential elections the following year.

During his incarceration, the party's leadership became the source of bitter, and sometimes violent, dispute. Seven people were injured when supporters of rival factions of the party clashed at its downtown Cairo headquarters in November 2008, setting the building on fire with Molotov cocktails.