Lawyer Abdourahmane Toure said that Etienne Fakaba Sissoko was being held on Sunday evening at the police station in the Malian capital, but he did not know which public statement or interview had provoked the arrest.

The economist recently spoke in several media, national and foreign, about the potential repercussions of sanctions imposed by African regional bodies in response to Mali's military junta abandoning elections planned for next month.

Fakaba Sissoko is a professor of economics and a researcher at the Centre for Political, Economic and Social Analysis of Mali, a private organisation in the capital.

He formerly worked for the Malian presidency and in a government body responsible for managing a crisis in the centre of the poor Sahel nation, which has been wracked by unrest since 2012, including jihadist attacks and clashes among communities.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) on January 9 introduced a battery of drastic economic and diplomatic measures against Mali.

These measures, notably affecting trade and financial policies, are in response to the junta breaking its promise to hold presidential and legislative elections on February 27, which would have restored civilian rule.

Transitional Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga denounced the sanctions as "illegal" in an interview on state television broadcast on Saturday.