Brazilian federal police have seized documents, computers and flash drives from a lawyer in Brasilia suspected of terror links, local media reported.

Police said in a statement that the investigation was classified and that they were responding to a warrant to search and seize documents that may have been falsified. 

The United States returned Wednesday dozens of ancient artifacts that had been smuggled out of Egypt by an international criminal network, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said.

The items -- including a Greco-Roman style Egyptian sarcophagus discovered in a Brooklyn garage in 2009 -- were handed back to the Egyptian government at a ceremony in Washington.

Arab League military chiefs decided Wednesday to form a panel to examine all aspects of building a region-wide military force aimed at combating jihadists, including the Islamic State (IS) group.

The bloc agreed in March to set up the force, with members given four months to decide on its composition, precise rules of engagement and budget.

Egyptian poet Abdel Rahman al-Abnudi, widely known for his revolutionary verse and criticism of two toppled presidents, died Tuesday at the age of 76, his wife said.

Abnudi, who underwent brain surgery at a Cairo hospital just days ago, rose to prominence in the 1960s for his poems, some performed by legendary Arab singer Abdel Halim Hafez.

An Egyptian court sentenced ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to 20 years in prison Tuesday for abuses against protesters but acquitted him of charges carrying a possible death penalty.

Morsi was convicted of ordering the arrest and torture of demonstrators involved in clashes in 2012 when he was president, in a verdict Amnesty International denounced as a "travesty of justice."

Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji is expected to attend a meeting for Arab military leaders in Cairo this week following an agreement at an Arab summit to establish a joint force, al-Akhbar daily reported on Tuesday.

Qahwaji will represent Lebanon at Wednesday's meeting which Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi has called for, said the report.

Mortar fire killed two five-year-old boys Monday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, officials said, hours after a bomb killed three soldiers in the area where troops are fighting an Islamist insurgency.

Mortar rounds struck a residential area south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid in North Sinai late on Monday in which the two boys were killed, medics said.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has denounced the judiciary, calling it a tool for repression, and called for protests Tuesday when a court delivers the first verdict against ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

The country's first freely elected president, a leader of the Islamist Brotherhood, was ousted by the army in 2013 and put on trial amid a relentless crackdown on the movement.

An Egyptian court confirmed death sentences against 22 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on Monday over an attack on a police station in which one officer was killed.

The judgment comes ahead of an expected verdict on Tuesday against Morsi himself on charges of inciting the killing of protesters in December 2012 when he was president.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director Paul Brennan held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during an unannounced visit to Cairo, the president's office said.

The Sunday evening meeting came amid a quickening rapprochement between the longtime allies after Washington in March lifted a partial freeze on its $1.5 billion annual aid to Egypt that it imposed when then-army chief Sisi ousted elected president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.