Egypt court drops citizenship case against Ayman Nour NEWS / POLITICS WATCH: Sisi's human rights record casts pall over visit to France (2:03) Egypt Politics Middle East SIGN UP Ayman Nour took part in the 2012 Egyptian elections [File: Reuters] An Egyptian court has dropped a case against prominent opposition leader Ayman Nour that sought to strip him of his citizenship. The veteran opposition leader told Al Jazeera that the case against him was politically motivated and that it never had a legal basis. "Legal action should be taken against the lawyers who bring forward these kinds of malicious cases and abuse the right of litigation... These cases are clearly malicious and have no legal or constitutional basis," he said. "This is perhaps the third time I've had such a case against me... It is a form of blackmail and a form of distortion." Advertisement Nour, who ran against former President Hosni Mubarak in 2005, was accused of incitement against the state and its institutions through a private TV channel he operates from Turkey . According to the lawsuit, the Al Sharq television channel, which is owned and managed by Nour, was used as a tool to spread false news and incite violence against the Egyptian state. Nour told Al Jazeera in a separate interview, before the charges were dropped, that several cases had been brought against him "asking for the revocation of [his] citizenship". He added: "Egyptian citizenship obtained by a natural-born citizen cannot be revoked... These talks only reflect the state's ignorance of the law." Nour, the leader of the Ghad al-Thawra (Tomorrow's Revolution) party, had previously voiced fears about the Egyptian government going after a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) he had established.