The alleged "Barbarian" killer who masterminded the grisly murder of a young French man this month has confessed to the crime, The investigators has said Today in Ivory Coast where he was arrested.

A French source close to the investigation said "he has begun to confess" while an Ivorian police officer said his participation in the gruesome torture and murder of 23-year-old telephone salesman Ilan Halimi was "proven".

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking on French television hours after Youssouf Fofana was arrested in Ivory Coast, said he expected the suspect to be extradited quickly. The 25-year-old convicted petty criminal is of Ivorian origin. He styles himself -- in English -- as the "Brain of Barbarians" and is believed to have fled to the west African country last week.

Arrested overnight Wednesday, he was in the hands of two French police detectives early Thursday. "Police investigators are there so we think that he could be repatriated to France in the next hours," Villepin told Canal television. In a sign of the attention the crime has attracted in France, President Jacques Chirac and Villepin were to attend a Jewish memorial ceremony for Halimi in Paris on Thursday.

"This is a horrible drama so it is important that justice can be done very rapidly," the prime minister said. Ivorian police said Fofana had denied any anti-Semitic motives amid anger in the French Jewish community, where many believe Halimi was targeted because of his religion.

Halimi went missing in late January after being apparently lured into a sex-trap. He was held and tortured for three weeks in a poor multi-ethnic suburban Paris apartment estate by a gang that sent ransom demands to his family. He died shortly after being dumped by a railway line on February 13. Twelve suspects have been placed under judicial investigation in France, of whom six could face charges of being motivated by religious hatred. Several others were still being questioned, including the concierge of the apartment building where Halimi was held.
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