An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced opposition politician and former presidential candidate Ayman Nour to five years in jail on forgery charges, his lawyer and judicial officials said.
Nour, leader of the Ghad (Tomorrow) Party and the main challenger to President Hosni Mubarak in the September elections, will appeal, said his lawyer, Amir Salim.
"This is injustice and we are going to take it to the court of cassation," Salim told reporters.
Nour's wife, Gameela Ismail, who has organized daily protests against the trial, led Nour supporters in chants of "down with Mubarak, down with the regime."
'Politically motivated'
Nour has been on hunger strike for the past two weeks in protest at the trial, which he says is a politically motivated attempt to remove him from the political scene.
The forgery charges stem from Nour's application to set up the Ghad Party in 2004, a process which requires hundreds of signatures of endorsement.
Nour was detained in January and held for six weeks for questioning on allegations that many of the signatures were forgeries. He repeatedly denied it and said the authorities were trying to disrupt his campaign for the presidency.
Nour won about 8 percent of the popular vote in the presidential elections, second to Mubarak with 89 percent, but he lost his seat in parliament in November.