The director of hospitals in Egypt's Mediterranean city of Port Said says two soccer players are among the 27 people killed in riots there.
Violence erupted in Port Said after a judge sentenced 21 people to death in connection with a Feb. 1 soccer melee that killed 74 fans of the Cairo-based Al-Ahly team.
The security officials say most were killed in assaults on the governor's office, courthouse and prison after the sentence was handed down during a trial outside Cairo. They say two policemen also were shot to death outside the city's main prison when angry relatives tried to storm the facility.
Dr. Abdel-Raham Farah says Mahmoud Abdel-Halim al-Dizawi, a soccer player in Port Said's Al-Marikh club, was shot three times and died.
He says Tamer al-Fahla, a soccer player who used to play for the city's main Al-Masry team, was also shot dead on his way to Al-Marikh club.
The club is near a prison which residents tried to storm Saturday to free defendants in the soccer trial. The military has been deployed to try and restore security.
Security officials said the military has been deployed to Port Said — the second such deployment in less than 24 hours. The army was widely used to keep order by top generals who took over after Mubarak, but the military has kept a much lower profile since Morsi was elected as president in June.
President Mohammed Morsi cancelled a scheduled trip to Ethiopia Saturday and instead met for the first time with top generals as part of the newly-formed National Defense Council.
The military was also deployed overnight in the city of Suez after eight people died in clashes between security forces and protesters opposed to Morsi. Another protester was killed in Ismailiya, and security officials told the state news agency MENA that two policemen were killed in Friday's protests, bringing the death toll on the second anniversary of Egypt's uprising to 11.
Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013.
Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid read out the death sentences related to the Feb. 1 riot in Port Said that killed 74 fans of the Cairo-based Al-Ahly team. Defendants' lawyers said all those sentenced were fans of the Port Said team, Al-Masry. Executions in Egypt are usually carried out by hanging.
The judge Saturday said in his statement read live on state TV that he would announce the verdict for the remaining 52 defendants on March 9.
Among those on trial are nine security officials, but none were handed sentences Saturday, lawyers and security officials say.
Fans of al-Ahly, whose stands were attacked by rival club Al-Masry in the Feb. 1 incident in Port Said, had promised more violence if the accused did not receive death sentences. In the days leading up to the verdict, Al-Ahly fans warned of bloodshed and "retribution". Hundreds of Al-Ahly fans gathered outside the Cairo sports club in anticipation of the verdict, chanting against the police and the government.
Before the judge could read out the names of the 21, families erupted in screams of "Allahu Akbar!" Arabic for God is great, with their hands in the air and waving pictures of the deceased. One man fainted while others hugged one another. The judge smacked the bench several times to try and contain reaction in the courtroom.
"This was necessary," said Nour al-Sabah, whose 17 year-old son Ahmed Zakaria died in the melee. "Now I want to see the guys when they are executed with my own eyes, just as they saw the murder of my son."
The verdict is not expected to calm tensions between the two rival teams. The judge is expected to make public his reasons for the death sentences March 9, when the remaining 52 defendants receive their sentences.
A Port Said resident and lawyer of one of the defendants given a death sentence said the verdict was nothing more than "a political decision to calm the public."
"There is nothing to say these people did anything and we don't understand what this verdict is based on," Mohammed al-Daw told The Associated Press by telephone.
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