FREETOWN, May 17 (AFP) - Wanted Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday
Sankoh was captured Wednesday in Freetown and taken to army
headquarters in the capital, government soldiers and a British army
officer said.
The rebel leader, whose forces have broken a fragile 10-month
peace accord, had been missing since May 8.
As soon as news broke of his arrest, angry crowds massed outside
the heavily-guarded army building shouting anti-Sankoh slogans,
while other Sierra Leoneans drove through the streets in cars and
trucks to voice their joy over the arrest.
The rebel leader, whose Revolutionary United Front (RUF) is
still holding 350 UN troops hostage, went missing Monday last week
following a massive anti-RUF demonstration outside his house that
turned violent. Nineteen people were killed in the incident.
In Rome, the Misna missionary group said Sankoh had been hiding
in a shelter under his Freetown house.
But government soldiers here told AFP that he had been arrested
early Wednesday in the seaside area of Lumley after being spotted by
residents there.
His fate had been the prime subject of talk in Freetown, with
rumours circulating in the press and on the streets that he had died
of a heart attack, fled into the bush, left the country to sell his
diamonds, or was being held secretly by the UN force UNAMSIL.

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