[JURIST] Former Egyptian presidential challenger and Al-Ghad opposition party leader Ayman Nour [JURIST news archive; Wikipedia profile] was sentenced Saturday to five years in prison on charges that he forged signatures required for his name to be on presidential ballots. Nour's lawyer said "This is a political verdict that will be annulled by the appeal court." Nour, himself a lawyer, has been on a hunger strike for two weeks to protest the decision in his case, which he claims to be a politically motivated attempt to remove him from Egyptian politics. During the trial, one of the six co-defendants claimed that his confession implicating Nour was coerced by security officials. Nour intends to run again in the next presidential election six years from now, after being defeated, 88.6 percent to 7.5 percent, by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [official profile] in September elections [JURIST report]. Aljazeera has more.