A visiting minister pledged Britain's full cooperation with the Egyptian authorities on Monday in recovering assets suspected to have been misappropriated by Hosni Mubarak's regime.

But Minister of State at the Home Office Jeremy Browne added that due process needed to be followed in proving that any assets targeted were ill-gotten.

Egypt's Court of Cassation on Sunday accepted an appeal against the life sentence handed down to former president Hosni Mubarak for his involvement in the deaths of protesters in 2011 and ordered a retrial.

Mubarak, his two sons Alaa and Gamal, his former interior minister and top security chiefs will now face a new trial, the court said after a very brief hearing.

Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak was on Saturday questioned over gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds allegedly received from the country's flagship state newspaper, a judicial source said.

Mubarak, who is already serving a life sentence for his involvement in the death of protesters during the 2011 uprising that toppled him, was ordered detained for 15 days pending the investigation, the source told AFP.

An Egyptian police officer and six recruits were wounded on Friday when gunmen attacked their patrol in the Sinai Peninsula, security officials said.

The patrol had been tasked with protecting the cross-Sinai pipeline that supplies Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan and which has been the target of 15 separate attacks since 2011.

Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been invited by his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Morsi to attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo next month, media said Friday.

The invitation was extended during a visit to Cairo by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who held talks on Thursday with Morsi as well as with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Kamel Amr, Iranian media reported.

The head of Egypt's central bank, Faruq el-Okda, has resigned and will be replaced by his ex-deputy Hisham Ramez, the president's spokesman Yassir Ali said on Thursday at a news conference attended by both men.

Ali said Ramez will replace Okda in February. "I am very happy with this civilized transfer," Okda told reporters.

An Egyptian journalist accused of trespassing and filming in a military zone on the border with the Gaza Strip has been released, but only until his trial continues next week, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

The army arrested Mohammed Sabry, a freelance video journalist and activist who opposed military trials, in the border town of Rafah in the eastern Sinai Peninsula while he was working for Reuters news agency, Amnesty International said.

Egypt's Islamist Nur party elected a new chief on Wednesday after a split within the powerful ultraconservative Salafi movement splintered the party ahead of parliamentary elections.

The party at a general assembly selected Yunis Makhyun, who was a member of parliament until a court annulled the Islamist-dominated house in June, in a vote shown live on television.

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi will meet his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo on Wednesday, Morsi's office said.

Abbas and Meshaal will first "meet Egypt's intelligence chief before holding a three-way meeting with President Morsi," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali told Agence France Presse.

Qatar said on Tuesday it will increase its financial aid to Egypt by $2.5 billion to a total of $5 billion, comprising an outright grant of $1 billion and $4 billion in bank deposits.

The financial lifeline comes as Egypt battles a currency crisis and seeks an IMF cash injection into its teetering economy of an almost equivalent amount.