Swedish police on Thursday arrested former neo-Nazi leader Anders Hoegstroem over the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the former Auschwitz death camp, a prosecutor told AFP.

The arrest took place "during the afternoon in Stockholm, at his home," prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnstroem told AFP.
 

"He is currently held at the police station and he has asked for a lawyer, which we are trying to get him," she added.
 

Hilding Qvarnstroem would not detail the charges against Hoegstroem.
 

She said the Stockholm court would decide whether to extradite him.
 

The prosecutor on Wednesday had instructed Swedish police to arrest Hoegstroem, 34.
 

Poland issued a European arrest warrant for Hoegstroem on 2 February, after Sweden provided additional information on the suspect's place of birth, parents' names and residence.
 

Polish justice authorities indicted Hoegstroem in January for his alleged involvement in the 18 December theft of the sign from the gate of the notorious camp set up in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II.
 

Hoegstroem has told Swedish media he was supposed to act as an intermediary to pick up the sign and sell it to a buyer, but in the end he wound up informing Polish police about the people behind the plot.
 

The sign was recovered by Polish police two days after the theft and five Polish men were arrested and charged.
 

The five-metre metal inscription - which means "Work Will Set You Free" in German - was returned by investigators to the Auschwitz museum on 21 January.
 

The sign has long symbolised the horror of the camp where some 1.1 million people - one million of them Jews - fell victim to Nazi German genocide from 1940 to 1945.
 

Source: AFP