Egypt has seized a large weapons consignment, including Grad rockets, that had been smuggled from Libya and could have been headed to the Gaza Strip, press reports said on Saturday.

The haul, which included 138 Grad rockets and a further 139 Grad warheads, was made in the Mediterranean coastal town of Marsa Matruh, not far from the Libyan border, Egyptian newspapers reported.

Jordanian pro-reform demonstrators marched on Friday to salute Islamist Mohamed Morsi, "son of the Brothers," on the eve of his swearing-in as Egypt's first democratically elected civilian president.

"Congratulations to Egypt. The revolt has won," read one banner carried by more than 1,000 opposition Islamists and other members of political parties who marched in central Amman.

Islamist Mohammed Morsi paid tribute on Friday to Egypt's Muslims and Christians alike and symbolically swore himself in as the country's first elected civilian president before a huge crowd at Tahrir Square.

Crowds had thronged the square from early in the day ahead of the president-elect's appearance on the eve of his official swearing-in.

The Council of Europe on Thursday expressed its concern at the "obstacles" threatening democracy in Egypt, which will swear in its first civilian president this Saturday.

While welcoming the election of Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist winner of Sunday's presidential poll, the Council's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) said in a resolution that it was worried about "real obstacles to democracy" in the country.

A criminal court on Thursday jailed for 15 years each a former Mubarak-era cabinet minister and a businessman for selling Israel natural gas below market value, a judicial source said.

"The Cairo criminal court sentenced former oil minister Sameh Fahmi and fugitive businessman Hussein Salem to 15 years in prison each over the (Israel) gas deal," the source told Agence France Presse.

Egypt's ailing former strongman Hosni Mubarak is slipping in and out of a coma and his morale has plunged after news of Mohamed Morsi's victory in the presidential polls, officials told AFP on Wednesday.

"The former president has been greatly affected by the news of Morsi's presidential victory," said one of the officials at a Cairo military where Mubarak was transferred last week.

Egypt's administrative court suspended on Tuesday a justice ministry decision to allow the ruling military powers to arrest civilians, a judicial source said.

The court took the decision after reviewing an appeal filed by 17 rights groups against the controversial decree passed on June 13.

Israeli military police have arrested 15 people, most of them soldiers, accused of helping smuggle drugs from Egypt's Sinai peninsula across the southern Israeli border, the army said on Monday.

The military's website described the affair as "one the biggest ever in terms of the quantity of hard drugs."

President-elect Mohamed Morsi pushed ahead on Tuesday with selecting a government of mostly technocrats amid delicate negotiations with the ruling military on its future powers, aides said.

Egypt's first civilian president, and its first elected leader since an uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak early last year, went straight to work after he was declared the election winner on Sunday, a senior aide said.

The Egyptian presidency on Monday denied that president-elect Mohamed Morsi gave an interview to Iran's Fars news agency, in which he reportedly pledged to strengthen ties with the Islamic republic.

"Mr Morsi did not give any interview to Fars and everything that this agency has published is without foundation," a spokesman for the Egyptian presidency told the official news agency MENA.