Ayman Nour, leader of a small liberal Egyptian party, owes his freedom to Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. In February, she cancelled a trip to Cairo to underline her disapproval of his imprisonment on apparently trumped up charges of forgery.

The 40-year-old lawyer regained his freedom after 43 days behind bars and is now back at his penthouse in Zamalek, an upper-class Cairo neighbourhood. But as he prepares to run against President Hosni Mubarak in the September elections, he is lamenting the way government supporters have used the US intervention to undermine him. "There are posters saying I'm the baby of Madeleine Albright [the former US secretary of state] and newspaper reports claiming I was a soldier in Vietnam," says Mr Nour.