(Rapaport…August 5, 2002) Italian police arrested Sanjivan Ruprah for traveling on a false Belgian passport, a police spokesman told Reuters. Ruprah, 36, is a suspected arms dealer who allegedly supplied weapons to rebel forces in Sierra Leone. He is also suspected of having links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network through ties to a Russian associate, Victor Bout, who allegedly supplied weapons to rebels in Africa, Afghanistan and Eastern Europe in exchange for diamonds.. Police arrested Ruprah the northern town of Cremona, outside Milan, on August 2. He was arrested in Belgium in February, but he was released from custody in late June.
Both Bout and Kenyan-born Ruprah’s names are on a UN list of people banned from international flights because of links to arms and diamond trafficking in Africa.