BUJUMBURA, March 9 (Reuters) - Attackers threw grenades at the homes of three Burundian politicians who defected from the ruling party, in the latest in a series of intimidation attacks in a nation emerging from civil war, police said on Sunday.

No one was injured in the simultaneous attacks in the capital Bujumbura on the homes of the three legislators, all of them recent senior members of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, police spokesman Pierre Channel Ntarabaganyi said.

The three targets are among 46 politicians who last week wrote to the United Nations soliciting protection, saying their lives were in danger from political opponents in the tiny central African nation.

Emerging from a 13-year war pitting the majority Hutu ethnic group against the dominant minority Tutsi, Burundi has a long history of political violence and is filled with former combatants with no work and easy access to weapons.

"The police caught one person who was on a motorcycle and he was found with a hand grenade," Ntarabaganyi said. "He is now under interrogation, and we hope we will help us find out the people behind the attacks."

Grenade attacks around the capital are common. The homes of five opposition politicians were attacked in a similar fashion last year, but no one has ever been arrested.

When President Pierre Nkurunziza took office in August 2005, Burundi was viewed as a prime example of an African nation that solved its problems with the help of its neighbours.

Allegations of corruption, rights abuses and political intimidation have since clouded that view. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ ) (Editing by Bryson Hull and Matthew Jone)

AlertNet news is provided by