British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday ruled out banning Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood but said the group had a "highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism" and was "opaque" and "secretive".

Membership or having links to the Islamist organization, which is an opposition force in Egypt and has a base in London, should be considered a "possible indicator of extremism", Cameron said.

An Egypt military court has sentenced nine Egyptians to life in prison for their involvement in a failed attack on tourists at a famous pharaonic temple, army officials said Thursday.

Two others were also sentenced to seven years in jail on Wednesday for the attack, which prosecutors say was carried out by members of the Egyptian affiliate of the jihadist Islamic State group.

Egypt said Monday it still has no evidence to back up Moscow's analysis that a "terrorist" attack had downed a Russian passenger plane at the end of October in the Sinai.

The jihadist Islamic State group said it smuggled a bomb on board that blew up the Russian jet on October 31, killing all 224 people on board.

Egypt on Thursday ordered nine policemen to stand trial for the beating to death of a man in custody, prosecutors said, after authorities vowed a crackdown on police abuses.

The nine, including three lieutenants and a captain, were arrested last week as part of a probe into the death of the 47-year-old at a police station in the southern city of Luxor in November.

Egypt has released an Israeli who spent 15 years in prison for spying, while Israel has freed two Egyptians, officials said Thursday amid improved ties between the two states.

All three were said to have served their full terms and it was unclear whether their imprisonment could have been further extended or if their releases resulted from negotiations.

Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead an Egyptian policeman guarding a post office in southern Cairo on Thursday, a senior police officer said.

The assailants fled the scene of the shooting in the district of Badrasheen.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Tuesday called for world action to halt the flow of weapons and fighters into and out of war-torn Libya, Egypt's neighbor to the west.

"Not confronting the situation in Libya will lead to new dangers in the region," he warned after talks in Athens with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. 

Assailants attacked a Cairo nightclub Friday with petrol bombs, killing at least 16 people in the ensuing blaze, following an apparent dispute with the staff, the interior ministry said.

Police were hunting for the perpetrators of the pre-dawn attack on the El-Sayad club and restaurant.

Egypt's top court on Thursday ordered a retrial of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, overturning a death sentence for Islamist protest violence, a judicial official and a lawyer said.

Thirty-six co-defendants who were condemned to death or life in prison by a lower court will be retried along with Badie, who has also been sentenced to death in a different case.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday ordered a final retrial in a corruption case against Ahmed Nazif, who was prime minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, state media and his lawyer said.

Nazif, who was sidelined by Mubarak to appease protesters days before the president's overthrow in February 2011, was convicted of using his position to amass a fortune of $8.2 million (7.5 million euros).