People: Morillon's name in the frame

THOSE attempting to track down the monsters responsible for the mass rapes perpetrated in Bosnia need look no further. An Iranian newspaper has identified the culprit. It is none other than the French commander of the UN forces in Bosnia, Philippe Morillon, according to the weekly Keyhan Hava'i. General Morillon, it assured its readers last week, was guilty of 'raping and assassinating a great number of innocent, defenceless girls' in the embattled republic.

The newspaper said: 'No one has yet forgotten that the French Commander of the UN Forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina has, during his so-called courageous operations, raped a great number of the innocent, defenceless girls of Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the continuation of his even more courageous mission, has ordered the killing of the victims of his savagery.'

Really? It's a wonder that the 58-year-old general has the energy after dashing around the country accompanying UN relief convoys and mediating between warring factions.

PLENTY of eyebrows were raised last year when Brigitte Bardot married her fourth husband, Bernard d'Ormale, a right- winger whose chief claim to notoriety had been his friendship with the National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Now Mr d'Ormale is planning to run for mayor of the trendy French Riviera resort of St Tropez where the couple live. He told the Nice-Matin newspaper yesterday that he wanted an 'apolitical' local campaign, to restore to St Tropez a 'festive mood it had in the Sixties'. With rioting breaking out among immigrant and under-privileged communities in France, it remains to be seen whether he resists the temptation to capitalise on local xenophobia.

A JOHANNESBURG woman who escaped in her car from men firing assault rifles was stopped by police and given a 300 rand ( pounds 60) speeding ticket.

Alison Dutton told the Sunday Star newspaper that she began speeding through a Johannesburg suburb after a pick-up truck carrying several men armed with AK47 rifles pulled up behind her. The men were firing wildly at pedestrians after making a getaway from a bank they had attempted to rob.

'I put my foot down and spun around the corner and just drove as quickly as possible,' said Ms Dutton. A traffic officer pulled her over for doing 57mph in a 35 mph zone. Ms Dutton said she told the officer about the shooting at the bank but he did not believe her.

THE ITALIAN singer Domenico Modugno, who wrote and sang the 1958 hit Volare, has emerged from semi-retirement to announce his latest project - a song about Italy's corruption scandal to be called 'We've had enough of thieves'.

There is only one hitch. Anybody who is anybody in Italy nowadays is accused of involvement in the country's spiralling corruption scandal. Modugno is no exception. Brandishing a hammer at a news conference last week, he denied he was involved in the scandal and said he'd like to hit his accuser on the head.

'My accuser is a liar and a thief and I am offended by the claim,' he said. Modugno's name was drawn into the corruption probe when a former official told investigators the singer had received pounds 213,000 for the tiny Radical Party which Modugno used to represent in parliament.

Volare (To Fly), won the prestigious San Remo Song Festival in 1958 and topped the charts in the United States, where the most popular and lasting cover version was sung by Dean Martin.