ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, 16 April 2006 — Egyptian police fired tear gas yesterday to stop clashes between Christians and Muslims, which broke out during the funeral of an elderly Copt killed in Alexandria a day earlier, witnesses said.

Hundreds of Christians turned out for the funeral of the Coptic man, who died on Friday after he was stabbed by a Muslim in an attack at two churches. Five other people were knifed and wounded in the attack.

Muslims and Copts attacked each other with sticks in the northern city’s downtown area and stones were thrown from nearby buildings, as mourners marched to the cemetery to bury the body of 78-year-old Noshi Atta Girgis. As the funeral procession, which turned into a demonstration calling for Coptic unity, headed to the cemetery, Muslims pelted buildings with predominantly Christian residents with stones, an AFP correspondent said.

Tensions between Egypt’s Christians and Muslims occasionally boil over into violence, notably in 1999 when 22 people where killed in sectarian strife in the southern village of Kosheh. Three Muslims and two Christians were wounded in yesterday’s scuffles during the funeral, ambulance workers said. Rocks and sticks were used in the clashes.

An Interior Ministry source said the 25-year-old man who carried out Friday’s attack said he was taking revenge for insults to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) — a reference to blasphemous cartoons published mainly in European newspapers. The Interior Ministry said Mahmud Salaheddin Abdul Razek had been arrested, describing him as “mentally unstable.”

But the Egyptian Coptic church blamed a “terrorist plot” for the attacks and rejected the claim they were the work of one mentally unstable man. A statement issued by the churches of Alexandria and aired on Al-Arabiya television blamed “a terrorist plot to target all churches ahead of Easter.”

The Interior Ministry said the rampage was carried out by a single attacker within the span of an hour, revising the earlier account by police officials who claimed three people had been involved. Three people died in Alexandria in clashes with the police in October during protests by Muslims over a church play which they said was offensive to Islam.