Spanish police have arrested a French man who allegedly supplied the arms used by Islamist militant Amedy Coulibaly to kill five people at a kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015, Spain's interior ministry said on Wednesday.

Antoine Denive, a 27-year-old from Sainte Catherine in France, was arrested on Tuesday in Rincon de la Victoria, a town close to Malaga on Spain's southern coast, the ministry said in a statement. It was a joint operation with French police, it said.

Coulibaly stormed the supermarket a few days after two other gunmen shot 12 people at and near the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris. He killed four Jews and a policewoman before being shot dead by police.

Before the attack, Coulibably spent time in Spain, Spain's High Court said last year.

Denive fled France several weeks after the attack in Paris, the statement said, and made a new base for himself in Malaga where he continued his illegal arms dealing using false documents. The ministry did not say if Denive was suspected of belonging to an Islamist militant.

Spain's High Court said on Wednesday Denive had denied selling arms to Coulibaly but said he was willing to be extradited to France. The court would send Denive to be tried in France unless there was another case against him in Spain, El Pais newspaper said.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.