Swedish police on Thursday arrested former neo-Nazi group leader Anders Hoegstroem in connection with the theft of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign at the former Auschwitz death camp.

Prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstroem said police arrested Hoegstroem, 34, at his home in Stockholm Thursday afternoon.

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

Qvarnstroem declined to give details on any charges filed against Hoegstroem but said the Swedish courts would decide whether to extradite him to Poland.

Poland issued a European warrant for Hoegstroem's arrest in February after he was indicted in there for alleged involvement in the theft.

Neo-Nazi past

Hoegstroem founded the National Socialist Front, a Swedish neo-Nazi organization, in 1994. He led the group for five years before quitting.

Swedish media reported in January that Hoegstroem claimed to have been a middle-man in the plot to steal the sign and sell it to a buyer, but that he eventually decided to tell Polish police who was behind the plot.

"We had a person who was willing to pay several million (kronor, or hundreds of thousands of dollars/euros) for the sign," he told tabloid Aftonbladet on January 8.

The sign, which translates to "Work Will Set You Free," was stolen from the Auschwitz camp on December 18. Police recovered it it two days later cut in three pieces, and arrested five Polish men suspected of carrying out the theft.

As many as 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz during the wartime occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany.

acb/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Nigel Tandy