BANJUL, Nov 22 (AFP) - Gambian soldiers have arrested Sierra Leonean
former
military ruler Valentine Strasser and handed him over to intelligence agents
for questioning, a military source said Wednesday.
   An army patrol picked up Strasser last week between Tallingding and Latri
Kunda, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Banjul, and held him at a
military
base before turning him in to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
   The soldiers found him carrying "operational" documents giving
"strategic"
site descriptions, the source said. He was still being held by the NIA on
Wednesday.
   However, it was unclear whether the documents referred to Sierra Leone,
where Strasser seized power in April 1992 and was ousted in 1996, or to
Gambia, an enclave along the Gambia river between northern and southern
Senegal.
   The Gambian government on November 2 deported Strasser back to London,
where he had been living in exile, shortly after he entered the small west
African country without notifing the authorities.
   The ex-army captain returned to Gambia about a week later, whereupon the
Sierra Leonean ambassador in Banjul said he would vouch for him.
   When President Yahya Jammeh's government first sent Strasser back to
London, it stated that it did not wish Gambia "to be seen as a refuge for
those who have committed crimes against humanity and are wanted in their own
country."
   Human rights organisation Amnesty International has urged Britain to put
Strasser on trial for murder and torture carried out by his regime.
   Strasser was sent to Britain in 1997 as part of a deal brokered by United
Nations peacekeepers.
   dh-at/nb/kc

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