The four were beaten to death west of Cairo, when a crowd of angry villagers, including ultraconservative Salafis, surrounded the house of Shiite community leader Hassan Shehata, threatening to set it on fire if 34 Shiites inside did not leave the village before the end of the day, according to security officials. [...] on Saturday, an appeals court granted a retrial for a top militant and 15 others accused of killing 25 Egyptian police officers in 2013. The attack in 2013 saw militants ambush two minibuses carrying off-duty police officers near the border town of Rafah, days after security forces killed hundreds of people in a crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi at protest camps in Cairo.