Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak must stand trial for a third time over the deaths of hundreds of protesters during the popular uprising that ousted him, a court ordered Thursday.

Mubarak, 87, ruled the country for three decades before he was forced from office in 2011. The following year, he was convicted over the deaths and sentenced to life in prison.

Police have arrested two curators of a new Cairo museum for allegedly stealing ancient artifacts and replacing them with replicas, the antiquities ministry said on Wednesday.

Looting of the country's cultural heritage has increased since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and during the years of political turmoil that followed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Wednesday criticized Egypt's use of the death penalty but pledged closer economic ties with its partner in the fight against Islamic extremism, during a protest-marred visit by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Merkel stressed the central role of Egypt as an anchor of stability in a conflict-torn region, referring to the Islamic State jihadist group fighting in Iraq and Syria, instability in Libya and Nigeria's Boko Haram militants.

Gunmen on a motorbike Wednesday killed two Egyptian policemen who worked as guards at the world-famous Giza pyramids in Cairo, in the latest attack on security forces, police said.

The antiquities ministry said the attack occurred in a deserted area nearly five kilometers (three miles) from the pyramids, and that the security situation was unaffected at the attraction, which remained open.

An Egyptian court Tuesday postponed its final ruling on ousted president Mohamed Morsi, who was sentenced to death along with dozens more over a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising.

The court said that on June 16 it would also announce its verdict against Morsi and 18 other defendants in a separate case of espionage.

Five prominent rights groups on Monday urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to press for an end to human rights abuses in Egypt when she meets President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this week.

Sisi, the former army chief who ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and launched a deadly crackdown against his supporters, begins Tuesday a visit to Germany at Merkel's invitation.

An Egyptian appeals court sentenced a lawyer and award-winning activist to 15 months in jail for breaking into a police station and assaulting officers in 2013, a court official said.

In February, Mahienour El-Massry, winner of France's 2014 Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, was sentenced with two other defendants to two years in jail by a lower court in the same case.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt said Sunday they shared a "common vision" on the war in Yemen, where a Riyadh-led coalition is waging a bombing campaign against Iran-backed rebels.

The coalition, which includes Egypt, began air raids in March targeting Huthi Shiite rebels and allied forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen.

Egypt on Sunday began tearing down the headquarters of the once-dominant party of ex-president Hosni Mubarak that was torched during the 2011 uprising that toppled him.

Demolition workers, using cranes and bulldozers, began razing the four-story headquarters of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) that overlooks the Nile in central Cairo.

Egypt on Saturday deported a U.S.-Egyptian citizen sentenced to life in jail on charges of destabilizing the country as part of a crackdown on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, officials said.

Mohamed Soltan, 27, whose father is a leading Brotherhood official, was arrested in August 2013 and sentenced to life in April.