He then is said to have tied Geoghan's hands behind his back, gagged him and wound a sheet around the former priest's neck, tightening it with a shoe before beating him severely until prison guards realised what was happening and intervened, the paper said.

BBC: 'Priest killer' faces charges

Zapf has also had to restate its accounts for several previous years, and this week prosecutors began investigating Rudolf Winning, its former finance director, for suspected balance-sheet manipulation.

ECONOMIST: A German dollmaker dithers in global tug of love

For instance, prosecutors say, he was involved in manufacturing earnings and concealing debt through sham sales of poorly performing assets to an off-balance-sheet partnership run by Andrew Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer.

ECONOMIST: The Enron drama goes to trial | The

If Martin can amputate inessential drugs and divisions fast, the company has a chance of regaining traces of its former brilliance--this time without the balance sheet tricks.

FORBES: Elan's Cleanup Guy

Former Comptroller General says the government must face up to its troubling balance sheet.

FORBES: StreetTalk With Bob Lenzner

Donald Trelford, a former editor of the Observer, a venerable Sunday newspaper that Mr Rowland bought and used as his publicity sheet, wrote this week that he introduced the tycoon to Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion.

ECONOMIST: Tiny Rowland