Police in Italy have arrested a Kenyan-born arms and diamond dealer suspected of links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Sanjivan Ruprah, 36, was arrested in the northern Italian city of Cremona near Milan on Friday afternoon, on charges of having a false Belgian passport.
Police said they found a number of incriminating documents in a subsequent search.
Belgian police arrested Ruprah in February, charging him with criminal association and using a false passport, but he was later released on bail and fled the country.
In a 2001 report on African arms dealing, the UN named Ruprah, then based in Monrovia, as helping to violate UN sanctions on arms transfers to Liberia.
Ruprah has worked closely in the past with Victor Bout, a Russian arms dealer cited in UN reports as the main supplier of weapons to Liberia and to the RUF in Sierra Leone.
Italian police said Saturday that international intelligence agencies had collaborated in the arrest.
Ruprah is being held in Cremona prison.
He had been staying for the previous three days in a hotel in the city. He was accompanied by a British woman when he was arrested in the street. Her identity was not released by police.
US sources quoted in the Washington Postin February said Ruprah had previously cooperated with US intelligence agencies tracking arms shipments to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
At the time, his associate Bout, operating out of the United Arab Emirates, was suspected of being a key arms dealer for the Taliban regime.
AFP