The son of reformed criminal John McVicar faces a lengthy jail term after being convicted of a catalogue of violent crime including the theft of a Picasso oil painting.
Described as a ruthless career criminal, Russell Grant-McVicar (33) embarked on a series of armed robberies to fund his life on the run after an escape from custody in 1993.
His 58-year-old father was once Britain's most wanted criminal after escaping from Durham high security prison in 1968 while serving 26 years for armed robbery.
Spanish film director Ricardo Franco (48) has died in Madrid of a heart attack, hospital officials said yesterday. His movie La Buena Estrella (The Good Star) won five awards in January at the Goya Prize ceremony, the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars, including those of best film, best director and best actor for the role played by Antonio Resines.
Madrid-born Franco directed his first film, El desastre de Annual (The disaster of Annual) in 1970 but it was banned under the regime of General Franco.
His first success came in 1976 with Pascual Duarte which was a film adaptation of the Nobel prize-winning writer Camilo Jose Cela.
World chess champion Anatoly Karpov is to open Lebanon's first international chess tournament next Wednesday, organisers said yesterday. Karpov, five-time world champion, will play two exhibition matches where he will be pitted against 30 players at once. Players from 16 countries, mainly Arab and European, will take part in the tournament.
It will be separate bedrooms for the likely next Philippine leader Joseph Estrada and his wife Luisa who has refused to join him at the Malacanang presidential palace, an Estrada aide said yesterday. Estrada (61), touted as a reformed adulterer, plans to move into the 18th century Spanish mansion by the Pasig river when, as expected, he is sworn into office on June 30th. But his psychiatrist wife told him "she would rather remain where she is". At present the couple lives in the upper middle class Manila suburb of North Greenhills.