An Italian citizen was among the three foreign employees of the Italian Oil contractor Saipem who were kidnapped on Thursday in the southern Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt, the Italian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The three oil workers were kidnapped from a car under police escort in the largest city of the Niger Delta, where a US oil executive was shot dead by a gunman on a motorcycle the previous day.

Police said they had captured one of the suspected kidnappers, but they had not yet disclosed his identity.

The incident had no connection with the militants that had carried out a series of attacks on oil firms and facilities in the region since January, according to a spokesman for the military.

Port Harcourt, where major offices of several multinational firms are located, handles the entire oil output of the west African country.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2006)