A protester was shot dead on Saturday in fresh clashes with the police in central Cairo, an Agence France Presse reporter and medics said.

An AFP correspondent saw the protester being brought to a mosque in Tahrir Square with gunshot wounds, with medics confirming he was dead.

The headquarters of the Egyptian Football Association were set ablaze on Saturday, minutes after a police officers' club was torched following sentencing over a deadly football riot last year.

Firefighters were working to put out the fire which spread through the building located in the same neighborhood as the officers' club, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

An Egyptian court on Saturday upheld death sentences for 21 defendants over a deadly football riot in Port Said, in a case that has already sparked widespread violence and threats of further unrest.

The court, sitting in Cairo for security reasons, also handed down life sentences to five defendants, with 19 receiving lesser jail terms and another 28 exonerated.

Egyptian police withdrew on Friday from their headquarters in Port Said that has been the target of protesters and transferred its protection to the military, the Interior Ministry said.

"It has been decided to give the military the responsibility of securing the police headquarters," a statement said.

President Michel Suleiman is expected to hold talks with Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour to ask him about his recent statements over Syria at the Arab Foreign Ministers meeting, media reports said on Friday.

“Suleiman will discuss the matter with Mansour, although he believes he had good intentions,” Baabda Palace sources told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Policemen across Egypt staged a strike on Thursday to demand the resignation of the interior minister, saying they no longer wanted to be used as a political tool, security officials said.

The discontent began weeks ago with isolated pockets of protest, but by Thursday police were on strike in areas of Cairo, Alexandria, the Nile Delta, the Suez Canal provinces, southern provinces and the Sinai peninsula.

Two Britons were kidnapped on Thursday by Bedouin tribesmen in Egypt's Sinai but released soon afterwards following negotiations with security officials, police chief Magdi Moussa told Agence France Presse.

"They have been released and are heading back to their place of accommodation," Moussa said.

The head of security in Port Said was sacked on Wednesday, security officials told Agence France Presse, as violence raged in the Egyptian canal city.

Mohsen Radi was relieved of his duties and transferred to the prison services department in Cairo "in response to demands by residents and to help calm the situation," one of the officials said.

Egypt's administrative court on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of controversial parliamentary elections scheduled for April 22, throwing the country deeper into political crisis.

Judge Abdel Meguid al-Moqanen said Islamist President Mohamed Morsi had ratified a new electoral law last month without sending it to the Supreme Constitutional Court for its approval, as required by the constitution.

New clashes between police and protesters erupted on Wednesday in the Egyptian city of Port Said, the scene of several days of unrest, Agence France Presse reporters said.

Police and protesters lobbed rocks at each other under a volley of tear gas that caused several people to collapse. Gunfire could also be heard, as military planes circled low overhead.