A policeman was shot dead in the aftermath of clashes in Cairo on Friday, Egypt's interior ministry said, after a protest staged by supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi.

The policeman was hit by a bullet in the chest as he took an arrested protester to a police van after security forces broke up the protest on the outskirts of the capital's upscale Maadi district, the ministry said on its Facebook page.

Egypt allowed a prominent columnist, who strongly criticized the army ouster of president Mohammed Morsi, to travel abroad Friday, airport officials said, just weeks after blocking him from leaving.

The name of Fahmy Howeidy was not on any stop list at Cairo airport, and the columnist for the independent al-Shorouk newspaper was allowed to fly to Casablanca, the officials said.

An Egyptian court acquitted former Hosni Mubarak interior minister Habib Al-Adly of corruption Thursday in a retrial after he had been sentenced to 12 years in 2011.

In March 2013, a cassation court had ordered the retrial of Adly, who had been convicted of money-laundering and illicitly enriching himself.

An Egyptian court extended for a further 45 days Wednesday the detention of an Al-Jazeera journalist who has been on hunger strike for nearly five months, judicial sources said.

Abdullah Elshamy, who works for the main Arabic channel of the Qatar-based network, was arrested August 14 when police dispersed supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo.

An Egyptian court jailed prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, a symbol of the 2011 revolt against Hosni Mubarak, for 15 years for assaulting a policeman during an illegal protest.

Abdel Fattah, on bail since March, was arrested along with two co-defendants immediately after the ruling as they waited to be allowed to enter the makeshift court at a Cairo police academy.

President Barack Obama Tuesday stressed the need for political freedoms in Egypt, as he spoke to the country's new president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew his freely elected predecessor and crushed his party.

Obama spoke by telephone to Sisi, as the United States resumed its uncomfortable balancing act between retaining influence with Egypt, a key regional power, despite discomfort with a political regime that conflicts with its own values.

Washington on Tuesday slammed an "horrific" video of a woman being sexually assaulted in Cairo and urged the new government to stand by a vow to stamp out such attacks.

The video "shocked and appalled us as much as it did the Egyptian people," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

A video of a woman being sexually assaulted at inaugural celebrations for Egypt's new president has spotlighted a national epidemic, but activists believe that stopping such attacks will be difficult.

Graphic footage, apparently filmed on Sunday using a mobile phone, shows a mob of men surrounding the young woman, who was stripped of her clothes and badly bruised in the assault in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square.

Egyptian police have arrested seven men accused of sexually assaulting women at celebrations marking President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's inauguration, officials said Monday, after outrage triggered by a graphic video of one attack.

The footage shows a crowd of men surrounding the young woman, who was stripped off her clothes and badly bruised, as police escorted her to an ambulance following Sunday's attack on Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square.

The UAE promised Monday to keep up its support for Egypt's new leadership after the election as president of ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is backed by several Gulf monarchies.

Sisi's inauguration on Sunday "supports stability in Egypt and the Arab world," UAE Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum was quoted as saying at the weekly cabinet meeting by official news agency WAM.