He was captured at the presidential residence after U.N. and French attack helicopters fired rockets into the compound on the morning of April 11.

"Mr. Gbagbo and his wife have been arrested and they are in custody," said Hamadoun Toure," said Hamadoun Toure, the spokesman for the U.N. mission in Ivory Coast.

Toure says no U.N. troops were involved in Mr. Gbagbo's capture which he says was carried out by fighters supporting internationally-recognized president Alassane Ouattara.

Those fighters were backed by French special forces who used a convoy of more than 30 tanks and armored personnel carriers to advance on the compound, where Mr. Gbagbo was holding out in an underground complex, refusing to recognize that he lost November's presidential vote.