A judge sentenced former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to life in prison on Saturday after convicting him of involvement in the murder of protesters during the uprising that ousted him last year.

A senior lawyer for Mubarak's defence team told Agence France Presse the strongman, who was taken to a Cairo prison after the hearing, will appeal the sentence.

The United Nations said Friday the Syrian government has released 223 prisoners, but stressed that many more must still be freed.

U.N. monitors on Thursday saw 210 detainees released in Damascus and 13 in the southern city of Daraa, U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said.

The rebel Free Syrian Army on Friday announced it was resuming "defensive operations" after the expiry of its ultimatum for the regime to respect international envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan.

"We will now resume defensive operations," FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Agence France Presse via Skype. "We will not go on the offensive because we do not want to be singled out as the ones responsible for breaking the peace initiative."

Russia's foreign ministry on Friday blamed the Houla massacre, in which 108 people were killed, on foreign assistance to Syrian rebels, including arms deliveries and mercenary training.

"The tragedy in Houla showed what can be the outcome of financial aid and smuggling of modern weapons to rebels, recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with various sorts of extremists," the ministry said in a statement.

The U.N. Human Rights Council ordered Friday an independent probe to hunt those guilty of the massacre in Houla, Syria, which rights chief Navi Pillay said could constitute a "crime against humanity".

Forty-one of the 47-member council backed a call urging an investigation by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, set up by the council last year to gather evidence on alleged rights abuses there.

Germany and Russia agreed on the need for a political solution to end the bloodshed in Syria, their leaders said after talks here Friday, as Vladimir Putin warned the country could be on the brink of civil war.

The Russian president said the situation in strife-wracked Syria was "extremely dangerous" but underlined his opposition to military intervention, after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the second leg of his first foreign tour since returning to the Kremlin.

The opposition Syrian National Council on Friday accused Iran of "interference in Syrian affairs" by providing Damascus with military aid, and called for an Arab League and U.N. probe.

"Despite the Syrian regime's crimes... the Iranian regime seems determined to provide it with full military, security, economic and political support," the SNC said in a statement.

Al-Qaida announced on Friday that it had freed 27 soldiers captured in southern Yemen last month after they had "repented" and promised not to return to the army.

The Partisans of Sharia (Islamic Law), linked to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said the soldiers had been captured in al-Kud in Abyan province, where they have seized control of many localities in the past year.

Syria and the entire region are in danger if a full-fledged conflict erupts in the country, U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay warned on Friday as she urged a probe into the Houla massacre.

In a statement to a specially-convened meeting of the Human Rights Council, Pillay also called on the international community to throw its weight behind the six-point peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Officials in Tunisia's interior ministry said Friday they had banned a demonstration against Salafist extremism planned for this weekend, raising the prospect of fresh clashes on the streets.

Activists using the Internet had called for the protest for Saturday on the city's main thoroughfare, avenue Habib Bourguiba.