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Ammon News - By Al Arabiya With Agencies

In what may be seen by protesters as a stubborn move by Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi, on Mondaythe leader decided to stick by a controversial decree granting him sweeping powers.

The decision is likely to heighten protests, as nationwide rallies on Tuesday have already been planned to protest the move, in the worst crisis since his election in June.

There is “no change to the constitutional declaration,” presidential spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters, after a meeting between Mursi and the country’s top judges aimed at defusing the dispute.

During the meeting, the judges expressed concern about Thursday’s constitutional declaration which allows Mursi to issue any law or decision unchallenged by the courts, Ali said.

But he added that Mursi sought to clarify that any irrevocable decisions apply only to issues related “to his sovereign powers” and stressed the temporary nature of the decree.

A judicial source told AFP news agency that even if immunity were limited to sovereign powers, “which appears to be a compromise, there are still concerns that the text itself remains unchanged.”

The crunch talks came on the eve of planned protests by rival forces, although the Muslim Brotherhood party from which the president hails withdrew its call for a rally out of fears that it would spark more clashes.

A court will next week examine the legality of the decree by which Mursi assumed broad new powers on Thursday, an official said, as demonstrators opposed to the Islamist leader staged a sit-in at Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square.


Third fatality


Hundreds of mourners turned out, meanwhile, for the burial of a member of the president’s party who was killed on Sunday in violence outside its offices in the Nile Delta town of Damanhour.

Angry demonstrators have also torched offices belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

In Cairo, thousands marched at the funeral of Gaber Salah, a member of the April 6 movement who died last week from injuries suffered in clashes near Tahrir Square.

The movement is one of the pro-democracy groups that called for last year’s uprising the toppled the regime of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak.

And a third fatality in the ongoing clashes between police and demonstrators this week was named as Ahmed Naguib Mohamed Ali, 18, according to Egypt Independent.

Al-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence said Ali passed away on Monday after being shot in the head.

But the Wafd party newspaper reported on Monday, that the Health Ministry was unaware of such cases or of the death of the protester.