XMAS SHOCKER: KK ARRESTED

Zambia's former president Kenneth Kaunda was arrested on Chrismas Day and detained by Zambian Police.

Kaunda seen here as he was being whisked away by heavily armed police has not been formally charged with anything but his arrest is linked to the recent abortive coup in Zambia.

Kaunda, 73, was transported to police headquarters in a high-speed convoy of pickup trucks filled with 40 paramilitary police. After about an hour, he was bustled into another vehicle and taken to the Kamwala prison. "I have been detained for 28 days. I don't know why," Kaunda told reporters before being driven off to the prison.

Kaunda, who ruled Zambia from independence in the early 1960s, came home to Zambia last weekend from Zimbabwe, where he had stayed after the coup attempt which happened while he was out of the country.

Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who succeeded Kaunda in 1991, declared a state of emergency in early November after a failed coup attempt on October 28 by army officers who accused his government of corruption. Since then, some 90 people, many of them opposition politicians, have been arrested.

Includes reporting by Associated Press. Photos courtesy of Eddie Mwanaleza via AP.