Egyptian president pledged tougher laws against militants

Cairo

A visibly angry Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged tougher laws against militants and suggested fast track executions at Tuesday's funeral of the state prosecutor assassinated in a car bombing.

Hisham Barakat died in hospital after a car bomb tore through his convoy in Cairo on Monday morning. He was the most senior official killed by Islamist insurgents who have bedevilled the country.

The attack, as Barakat was en route to his office, was a blow to former army chief Sisi, who won elections after ousting Islamist President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013. Barakat's funeral coincided with the second anniversary of mass protests that preceded Morsi's overthrow.

"The arm of justice is chained by the law. We're not going to wait for this. We're going to amend the law to allow us to implement justice as soon as possible," Sisi said in a televised speech surrounded by Barakat's mourning relatives. "Do courts in these circumstances work? Do these laws work? They work with normal people," said Sisi, shaking a clenched fist for emphasis. Later on Tuesday, gunmen shot dead a policeman outside a small museum south of Cairo, and three suspected militants died in an accidental car explosion in Cairo, police said.

Since Morsi's ouster, hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed by militants based in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula. The Islamic State group's affiliate there has claimed responsibility for the deadliest attacks.

At least 1,400 people, most of them Morsi supporters, have been killed in a police crackdown on protests.

Meanwhile, thousands of people, mostly Islamists but also including secular dissidents, have been jailed and hundreds sentenced to death. Morsi himself has been sentenced to die. Seven have so far been executed. Most of those sentenced to death are appealing the verdicts, a lengthy and convoluted process, but Sisi suggested it would be fast-tracked.

"We're not going to wait five or 10 years to try the people killing us," he said. Outside the mosque where the funeral was held, a crowd of 50 protesters chanted: "The people demand the execution of the Muslim Brotherhood."