SANAA- Yemen police Wednesday arrested the owner and editor of the main southern newspaper, Al-Ayyam, following clashes between police and armed guards of the banned daily, a security official said.

Hisham Bashraheel, 66, was taken into custody over clashes since Monday in which a policeman and a guard were killed and seven people were wounded, the official said from the southern city of Aden.

Police laid siege to the daily's offices after the policeman was killed on Monday while attempting to disperse a gathering protesting the banning since May of the daily that is accused of sympathising with southern separatists. The siege was lifted after 30 protesters and 20 guards, holed up in the newspaper premises, surrendered to the authorities after negotiations, but Bashraheel himself was not arrested.

Among those who gave themselves up Tuesday was Bashraheel's son and Ali Munassar, a member of the Yemen Socialist Party in Aden, according to the local source.

Bashraheel is also wanted by prosecutors in Sanaa to stand trial for his alleged role in the murder of a man in front of the paper's offices in 2008.

Al-Ayyam, one of the largest dailies in the south, was one of eight closed at the time over allegations of inciting separatism in the region amid a wave of deadly unrest there.