Dictator's son arrested

German police have arrested the son of the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha on a warrant from Switzerland, a prosecutor said today.

Swiss authorities have been tracking bank accounts linked to Abacha since the Nigerian government accused him of looting more than €2.2bn from state coffers when he ruled the African country from 1993 until his death in June 1998.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported today that the son, Abba Abacha, was arrested last month in the western city of Neuss after trying to withdraw money from a German account. He was arrested on a Swiss warrant citing charges by Geneva prosecutors, the report said.

A spokesman for prosecutors in Bochum, Germany, Bernd Bieniossek, said Abacha was being held in nearby Duesseldorf for possible extradition to Switzerland. He refused to comment on Der Spiegel’s report.

The Swiss government said last August it had found nearly $500m of “criminal origin” in Swiss accounts connected with the older Abacha and was ready to return the money to Nigeria