CAIRO: Egyptian police have arrested a senior member of a prominent militant Islamist group who was twice sentenced to death in the 90s during a bloody conflict with the government, security sources said on Wednesday.

Abd El-Hameed Abou Aqrab, a leader of the military wing of Gama a Al-Islamiya, was detained several days ago in the province of Assiut in southern Egypt and then moved to a prison in Cairo, the sources said. His family was notified on Wednesday.

Aqrab had been in hiding since the 1990s, when he was sentenced to death in absentia for killing an aide to the province s director of security and participating in attacks on police forces.

Egypt detained thousands of Gama a members or sympathizers during that decade, when the group was waging a low-level guerrilla war against security forces, mainly in the south.

But hundreds have since come out of detention after renouncing violence. Gama a leaders declared a truce after a deadly 1997 attack on tourists at a Pharaonic temple in Luxor.