By Richard Valdmanis DAKAR (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau's caretaker president may have cooperated with the planners of a doomed cocaine-and-weapons smuggling scheme meant to arm Colombian rebels, according to U.S. court filings reviewed by Reuters on Monday. The documents cast a shadow on international efforts to restore order in the tiny West African state, which has suffered a string of coups since 1974 independence and which has since become a transhipment hub for narcotics bound for Europe.

Labelled a drug baron by the US, which snatched him on the high seas off west Africa this week, Guinea-Bissau military kingpin Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto enjoys certain celebrity in his home country despite being a man of controversy. "Bubo", as he is better known, has found himself time and again welcomed with open arms by the people of Bissau, even after one of his close friends deposed the head of the army in a mutiny and after being held for plotting a coup.

The former navy chief of Guinea-Bissau was being held in New York and due to go before a judge Friday after being arrested on international cocaine trafficking allegations, officials said. A spokesman for the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office told AFP that Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto was in custody in the city, where he was brought after a high seas arrest. "His arraignment will be today," the spokesman said.

US agents have captured the former head of Guinea-Bissau's navy, an alleged kingpin in the nation's drugs trade with Latin America, in a sting operation on the high seas, intelligence sources and media said. Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto was transferred to the United States after being snatched in international waters near Cape Verde in an operation by US and Cape Verdian agents, state TV in the Atlantic island state reported.