Updated

Police in Sicily have jailed a man from Ghana after migrants told authorities he tortured them while they were in Libya awaiting smugglers to send them by boat to Italy.

Police in Agrigento said Saturday several migrants identified the 20-year-old Ghanaian as the man who had raped several women and beat, burned or administered electric shocks to migrants who were kept in a "safe house" in Libya awaiting passage.

A police statement said the man arrived on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa on March 5. Authorities said migrants recognized him as having committed torture and they had to intervene to stop several from trying to lynch him.

The man, who wasn't identified in the statement, is being investigated for human trafficking, kidnapping, sexual violence, torture and other crimes.