CAIRO: The judge in the trial of Ayman Nour, runner-up in this year's presidential elections, stormed out of Monday's court session after lawyers of both Nour and other co-defendants exchanged insults and shouted at each other. Judge Abdel Salam Gomaa stood up from his chair saying "I am leaving while security and police tried to silence the lawyers and others attending the trial. The fuss started when lawyer Ahmed Gomaa, who is defending one of the five other accused in court, insulted Nour by shouting: "you get your orders from your foreign leaders. Gomaa was repeating accusations by some pro-government and Nour critics that he was backed by the United States. Nour's lawyers told the judge he should have stopped Gomaa from insulting Nour, who is charged with ordering the forging of signatures to register his El-Ghad political party last year. Nour, 41, has pleaded not guilty and says the government is trying to frame him. Nour and his five co-defendants had been free on bail since March but were imprisoned last week on the court's orders.The judge gave no reason for that ruling, but Egyptian judges often make such orders when a guilty verdict is looming. Farid El-Deeb, Nour's chief lawyer, is contesting the prosecution's case on at least nine grounds,including a police raid on Nour's home without a warrant and the confiscation of the alleged forged documents while Nour enjoyed parliamentary immunity. On entering the court Monday, Nour told reporters he had been on hunger strike for the past 48 hours to protest treatment he received inside prison, including being denied visitors and being treated as a criminal rather than a defendant. Nour's Jan. 29 arrest and subsequent 42-day detention without charge strained U.S.- Egyptian relations. He finished a distant second to longtime President Hosni Mubarak in a heated September election and lost his seat in parliament in November polls. Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Nour's detention and the violations during the month-long parliamentary elections that ended this week "send the wrong signal about Egypt's commitment to democracy and freedom. "We would call upon the government of Egypt to make every effort to ensure that this trial conforms to international standards and we've also made it clear that we will be watching this trial closely, Ereli said. AP
