The group — also charged with belonging to a banned Islamist organisation, Jihad — was arrested in Mansoura, north of the capital Cairo, the sources said.

A bomb attack in February killed a French teenager in Cairo. It was the first such fatal attack on tourists in Egypt since bombs killed at least 23 people at an Egyptian resort in the Sinai peninsula in 2006.

Egypt arrested seven people in May in connection with the February attack.