Osama is now the property of Uganda Crocs Ltd, purveyors of fine crocodile-skin handbags destined for the followers of fashion in Italy and South Korea. Its man-eating days, the new owners hope, are over. Certainly it has lost its lusty appetite, forlornly nibbling on a single chicken since arriving.

Despite a fondness for human flesh, Osama, which measures nearly five metres from snout to tail, and weighs a tonne, is to be used for breeding stock. Alex Mutamba, the proprietor of Uganda Crocs, with nearly 5000 animals in his care, was delighted when the country's wildlife authority rang him up requesting a home for Osama. "All Nile crocodiles like Osama will eat a human being if they perceive their territory is being encroached on," he said. "But our crocodiles are well-secured, so I'm not too worried." Uganda is famous for its man-eating reptiles. In the 1970s, the dictator Idi Amin tipped 4000 disabled citizens into the crocodile-infested headwaters of the Nile in an unusual bid to rid his country of them. Osama, who is thought to be about 60 years old, might have been a beneficiary.

Wildlife campaigners will consider it shameful that Osama will spend its remaining days giving birth to handbags, but Luganga locals believe the croc has got off lightly. Since 1991, it has attacked both young and old in a reign of terror, eating its way through 10 per cent of the village population. Not only did it carry children away from the shore as they filled buckets with water, it would often swim beneath fishing boats and capsize them.

More recently, Osama began to jump into the wooden vessels themselves, highly unusual behaviour for a crocodile, before carrying off victims. In the end, their revenge came after the week-long vigil, mounted by men who squatted patiently on the shores of Lake Victoria as they lay in wait. Officials from the Uganda Wildlife Authority had draped a pair of cow's lungs over the branches of a tree near Osama's favourite hiding place, known by horrified locals as "the Butchery", as bait. The crocodile took the bait, only to find itself hanging by its jaws from the tree: a copper snare had been concealed in the cow's lungs and the more Osama tried to break free, the more its teeth became entangled.

Grabbing the ropes attached to the snare, more than 50 of the men slowly began to haul in the furious crocodile, a treacherous and lengthy task. Among those pulling the hardest was Yazid Kotongole. On nine occasions, the crocodile had killed fellow fishermen on the same boat as him, most recently his brother, but somehow he had always emerged unscathed.

Villagers turned their back on him, suspecting him of entering into a Faustian pact with the beast, who was popularly believed to have been possessed by Satan. When, on Monday, the villagers finally had the scourge of their community trussed and gagged, many were astonished when wildlife officials forbade them from finishing him off. "Even he has rights," the villagers were told. "He cannot be killed with impunity." Telegraph, London