A top Egyptian court has upheld a ruling halting a plan to transfer two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

The High Administrative Court rejected an appeal by the government against a lower court’s decision to stop it handing over Tiran and Sanafir.

Cheers erupted as the judge delivered the verdict, saying the government had failed to provide evidence that the islands were originally Saudi.

The transfer deal, signed last April, sparked rare protests in Egypt.

Tiran and Sanafir are located at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. They are uninhabited apart from Egyptian troops and multi-national peacekeepers.

President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said the islands had always belonged to Saudi Arabia and that Riyadh had asked Egypt to station troops there in 1950 to protect them.

But Sisi was accused of violating the constitution and selling the islands in return for a multi-billion dollar aid package announced during a visit to Cairo by King Salman.

Saudi Arabia has backed Sisi financially since he led the military’s overthrow of his predecessor, Mohammad Mursi, in 2013.

Uproar at the maritime border demarcation accord prompted protests across Egypt at which hundreds people were detained, according to human rights activists.

Source: BBC