A U.S. Navy civilian engineer was arrested Friday on charges of trying to steal schematics of a new nuclear aircraft carrier and have them sent to Egypt, the Justice Department said.

An undercover FBI agent posed as an Egyptian intelligence officer to snare Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, 35, from the state of Virginia, who is charged with two counts of attempting to export defense articles and technical data.

Egypt's prosecutor general Friday ordered an investigation into what it said were fabricated audio tapes claiming president Mohammed Morsi had been "illegally" detained immediately after his ouster last year.

Morsi, the country's first freely elected president, was ousted on July 3, 2013 by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after mass street protests against the Islamist's one-year rule.

Thirty-one defendants are to go on trial in Egypt later this month on charges related to the 2013 killings of four Shiites outside Cairo, a court statement said on Thursday.

The four, who included a cleric, were killed on June 23 last year when a hostile mob attacked a house where they had gathered in the village of Abu Mussalam in Giza province.

The American pilot and co-pilot of a Cessna airplane were slightly hurt Wednesday evening when they crashed short of a runway in the Saudi capital, a civil aviation spokesman said.

The pilot radioed that he needed to make an emergency landing because he had run out of fuel, Khaled al-Khaibari, spokesman for the General Authority of Civil Aviation, told Agence France-Presse.

Egypt is to make it illegal to "insult" the revolts that led to the ouster of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's two predecessors, his office said on Wednesday.

Hosni Mubarak stepped down after an 18-day uprising began on January 25, 2011, and his successor Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was ousted by then army chief Sisi after mass street protests erupted on June 30, 2013.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International slammed Egypt Wednesday over the mass death sentencing of 188 Islamists days after murder charges were dropped against ex-President Hosni Mubarak.

A Cairo court sentenced 188 supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to death Tuesday over the killing of 13 policemen in a village on the outskirts of Cairo on August 14, 2013.

An Egyptian court condemned 188 people to death Tuesday over a deadly attack on police, as the prosecution said it will appeal the acquittal of ex-president Hosni Mubarak over protester deaths.

The accused, of whom 143 are behind bars, were found guilty of taking part in an August 14, 2013 attack on a police station in Kerdassa, a village on the outskirts of Cairo, killing 13 policemen.

Egypt must rein in its security forces and investigate human rights abuses against protesters, the United Nations said Tuesday, calling political tensions in the country "alarming."

The U.N. rights office said it was deeply concerned by "the seriously damaging lack of accountability for human rights violations committed by security forces in the context of demonstrations."

Egypt's public prosecutor said Tuesday it would appeal a court ruling that dropped a murder charge against ex-president Hosni Mubarak over the deaths of protesters during the country's 2011 uprising.

"The prosecutor general has decided to appeal," it said in a statement, after a Cairo court on Saturday ordered the dropping of murder and corruption charges against Mubarak, who ruled for three decades until being driven from office.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan traveled to Cairo on Tuesday to attend an international conference on ways to confront terrorism and extremism.

Christian and Muslim representatives from around 130 countries are expected to attend the two-day conference organized by Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar.