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Sierra Leone's rebel leader captured

Sierra Leone's rebel leader Foday Sankoh has been captured in the capital Freetown, stripped naked and taken to army barracks, witnesses said on Wednesday.

Foday Sankoh, who was last seen on May 8 during a shootout at his home, was taken to the compound of former military ruler Johnny Paul Koroma before being transferred to Cockerill Barracks, one witness said.

"This morning we were in the compound here and we heard a shout that Foday Sankoh had been captured. His condition was not much bad but he was naked," James Frangawa, 28, a fighter with Koroma said.

"Our command authority ordered us to send him to the SLA (Sierra Leone Army) headquarters," he added.

Other Koroma aides say that Sankoh, whose rebels have been holding hundreds of UN peacekeeping troops hostage, was himself captured by a crowd of civilians late on Tuesday and stripped naked. They said that Koroma loyalists intervened to ensure his protection.

Armed soldiers stood guard at the barracks and crowds milled around after the news spread around Freetown.

Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front fighters attacked UN peacekeepers in the central Makeni area at the start of May and took hostage up to 500 of them after a dispute over disarmament under the peace deal. They have released around 150 but still hold 347.

The RUF attacks and a subsequent advance took the ill-prepared UN peacekeeping operation in the former British colony unawares and at one stage the rebels threatened to overwhelm them and attack the capital.

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