Charlie would have thought it ridiculous Lady Oona Chaplin

Swiss police have arrested two men - a Pole aged 24 and a Bulgarian aged 38 - and say they have confessed to stealing the coffin and reburying it.

Names of the accused have not been released, but police say they are both motor mechanics.

They were traced after police kept a watch on 200 phone kiosks and tapped the Chaplins' phone after the family received ransom demands of £400,000 for return of the body after it went missing in March.

Sir Charles' 51-year-old widow, Lady Oona Chaplin, refused to pay up saying: "Charlie would have thought it ridiculous." In further calls the kidnappers made threats to harm her two youngest children.

Hollywood rumours

The family kept silent about the ransom demands and various rumours circulated about the missing coffin.

One Hollywood report suggested it had been dug up because Sir Charles was a Jew buried in a gentile cemetery.

Lady Chaplin, daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill inherited about £12m after the death of her husband.

The couple and their eight children have been living in Lausanne since 1952.

A spokesman for the Chaplins said: "The family is very happy and relieved that this ordeal is over."

Superintendent Gabriel Cettou, the head of the Geneva police, said the two men would be charged with attempted extortion and disturbing the peace of the dead.

	E-mail this story to a friend