Luxor's new governor, a member of an ultra-conservative party linked to the 1997 tourists massacre in Egypt's famed temple city, today said he has resigned to avoid bloodshed after his appointment stirred a controversy.
Adel al-Khayat blamed his resignation on "an unjust media campaign" against him, Al Ahram newspaper reported.
"I discussed with my brothers from the party, and we agreed that I should present my resignation as Luxor's governor because we don't want bloodshed", Khayat said in a statement.
"We cannot accept the shedding of even one drop of blood for a position that we never wanted," he said.
Khayat is a member of the Building and Development Party, the political arm of the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya that fought an armed insurgency against the government starting in 1992 and attacked police, Coptic Christians and tourists.
Khayat's appointment triggered controversy due to Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya's role in the murder of at least 58 tourists and 4 Egyptians in a terrorist attack in Luxor in 1997.
The group was also implicated in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat.
President Mohammed Mursi infuriated many by appointing Khayat last Monday, reaching out for a political alliance with the more radical party ahead of a big wave of opposition-led protests on June 30, Al Ahram reported.
Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou submitted his resignation on Wednesday in protest against Khayat's appointment.
Al-Islamiya, which established the Building and Development Party following Egypt's 2011 uprising, is said to renounce violence after the Luxor attack.
Ever since Khayat's appointment, the residents of Luxor, a city in Upper Egypt, have been staging protests and keeping him from reaching the headquarters of the governorate.
His appointment also served a blow to tourism which is already suffering because of the security lax.
Luxor is one of the main tourist attractions and contains the most important Pharaonic monuments.
As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, it has frequently been described as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city.
