A campaign calling for the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and for early presidential elections has gathered over two million signatures, organizers told Agence France Presse.

The "Tamarod" (Rebellion in Arabic) campaign seeks to withdraw confidence from the Islamist leader because he has failed the revolution that brought him to power, they said.

Five Arab countries and Turkey have reiterated that President Bashar Assad should have no role in the future of Syria, as Russia and the United States proposed a peace conference.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as that of Turkey -- all supporters of the Syrian opposition -- expressed their stand at a meeting late Monday in Abu Dhabi, WAM Emirati news agency said.

The cousin and former aide of slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared in court on Monday charged with the attempted murder of Egyptian police officers, Agence France Presse reported.

Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam denied the charges which also included possessing unlicensed weapons and resisting arrest.

Ex-president Hosni Mubarak, on trial for the death of protesters during Egypt's 2011 uprising that toppled him, said future generations would judge him "fairly" in an interview published on Sunday, but his lawyer denied the exchange took place.

"The interview is fabricated, it never took place," lawyer Farid al-Deeb told Agence France Presse.

Egypt's interior minister said on Saturday police arrested three members of an al-Qaida-linked cell in an alleged transnational plot to bomb a Western embassy and other targets in the country.

The suspects were arrested with explosives intended to be used to bomb a Western embassy after an investigation showed threads in Pakistan, Iran and Algeria, Mohamed Ibrahim said at a news conference.

Egyptian authorities on Saturday released the founder of one of the key youth movements behind the 2011 uprising after he was held overnight, a judicial source told Agence France Presse.

Ahmed Maher of the April 6 movement was arrested on Friday in Cairo airport where he had landed from Vienna.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak appeared in court on Saturday to face a new trial for complicity in the murder of hundreds protesters during the 2011 uprising, as well as for corruption.

The 85-year-old Mubarak, who was taken into court in a wheelchair dressed in white and wearing sunglasses, is on trial along with his former interior minister, Habib al-Adly, and six security chiefs.

Egypt's security forces on Friday detained the founder of one of the key youth movements behind the 2011 uprising that toppled the former regime upon his arrival at Cairo Airport from Vienna, a security official told Agence France Presse.

Ahmed Maher of the April 6 movement was arrested at the airport "based on the orders of the general security department at the interior ministry," the official said.

Pope Francis on Friday prayed for "full unity" with the Coptic Orthodox Church as he received Patriarch of Alexandria Tawadros II for an historic visit in the latest sign of closer ties between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds.

"Our persevering prayer, our dialogue and the will to build communion day by day in mutual love will allow us to take important further steps towards full unity," Francis told Coptic Orthodox leader Tawadros at their meeting in the Vatican.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor's on Thursday downgraded Egypt's long- and short-term credit rating over the government's failure to meet the country's fiscal needs.

Egypt's long-term rating was lowered to 'CCC+' from 'B-', while its short-term rating dropped to 'C' from 'B', the agency said in a statement.