Mr Clean washes his hands of Italy

Antonio Di Pietro, the magistrate who began the ''Clean Hands'' anti-corruption drive in Italy, is washing his hands of his ''ungrateful'' country. ''Now all I want is to be forgotten,'' he wrote in his column in the magazine Oggi. ''This was the first wish I put under the tree of the saddest Christmas of my life.''

The former Milan prosecutor became a symbol of righteousness when he headed the three-year investigation, in which more than 3,000 politicians, bureaucrats and business people were implicated in corruption, and heads rolled in the Socialist and Christian Democratic parties.

But on 20 December prosecutors asked that Mr Di Pietro be indicted for allegedly extorting favours. He denies any wrongdoing, attributing the charges to a political vendetta. ''It is the price I have had to pay for my stubborn determination to proceed with the Clean Hands investigation at all costs,'' he wrote. ''I knew from the start that they would make me pay for it.''

A judge is to examine the case next month and decide if Mr Di Pietro should be sent for trial. The allegations have ended his plans to enter politics. ''Ours is an ungrateful country,'' he said, ''and even if time proves me right, I have nothing more to say or to give, as a prosecutor or as a citizen.''

Christian Brando is to be released from prison next Wednesday after serving nearly five years for killing his sister's lover. ''He will be paroled to the Los Angeles area next week,'' said a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. ''He will, in all likelihood, be picked up privately and go to wherever.''

''Wherever'' may or may not be the scene of the crime, the home of his father, Marlon. Christian, 37, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the May 1990 shooting of Dag Drollet, lover of his half-sister Cheyenne, and was sentenced to 10 years.

He had told the court that he had been angry with Drollet for allegedly beating Cheyenne, who was pregnant, and had killed him accidentally in a struggle. Cheyenne later gave birth to a son, who is being raised by Drollet's parents in Tahiti, where Cheyenne hanged herself last spring.

Who's got the cutest dimples in South Africa? No contest, says the South African edition of Cosmopolitan magazine, which named Nelson Mandela, 77, the most eligible and sexy man in the country. ''Currently divorcing, the world's favourite president is about to become South Africa's most eligible bachelor,'' the magazine said. ''He's everything a woman could ever want in a man - mega-powerful, kind, modest, considerate and with a great sense of humour. Not to mention the cutest dimples, the world's most winning smile and funky dress sense.''

Magdalena Kopp, wife of Carlos the Jackal, has returned to her home city of Neu-Ulm in Germany and may be ready to testify against him, Spiegel news magazine says. Berlin prosecutors are investigating Ms Kopp, who was linked with the Revolutionary Cells terrorist group for almost 20 years, for a suspected role in a 1981 attack against Radio Free Europe.

A spokesman for the prosecutors confirmed they had spoken with Ms Kopp about her own activities but declined to comment on her willingness to testify against her husband, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, and his deputy, Johannes Weinrich, her former lover. Both men face trial for murders and bombings dating back to 1975.

Ms Kopp had been living in Venezuela with her nine-year-old daughter, Rosa, under the protection of her husband's family.