Bedouin tribesmen shot dead two policemen in the Sinai Peninsula today as they freed eight suspects on their way to a court hearing, security sources said.
The tribesmen, using four pick-up trucks, cornered the police van carrying the prisoners, then opened fire, the security sources said. Three policemen and a driver were also wounded.
"The people behind the attack were probably relatives of one of the prisoners seeking to free him," a security source said.
Relations between bedouin and the police have worsened since police detained thousands of young men in the wake of a series of bombings at south Sinai tourist resorts in 2005.
The police had been delivering the prisoners from the city of Port Said to a court in el-Arish, near Egypt's border with Gaza. The shooting occurred 90 km west of Arish.
Reuters