A court in Cairo has sentenced to death seven Egyptian Christians who were tried in absentia for participating in an anti-Islam video that prompted violent protests in many Muslim countries.

"The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet," said the judge, Saif al-Nasr Soliman.

The crude, low-budget video, Innocence of Muslims, produced privately in California, denigrated the prophet Muhammad, and its circulation online triggered anti-US protests and attacks on western embassies in September.