OFF THE WIRE

ALMOST DEAD: Lubova Rebel was dismayed earlier this month when, while flipping through her local newspaper, she came across her own obituary. Rebel, 81, called the local authorities in Limbazi where she lives to inform them that she was very much alive. Limbazi police launched an investigation and arrested her son Vladimir Rebel, 48, who they say reported her mother dead to collect a 40 lat ($64) funeral fee paid by the government. Vladimir Rebel convinced a local doctor to issue a death certificate on Jan. 28 for his mother without examining her body. He was charged with fraud but later released and ordered to return the money. Rebel said on national television this week that his mother was in poor health and that one day he felt her body. It was cold. He thought she was dead. Though Lubova Rebel has convinced the authorities that she is truly among the living, her troubles aren't over. Her name was removed from the state pension rolls. The general prosecutor's office is currently helping to get her name restored.

BUSTED: Lithuanian customs officers arrested a man at Vilnius International Airport, who they say tried to smuggle 300 grams of cocaine into the country by swallowing it. They said the unidentified man arrived in Lithuania on a flight from Amsterdam. Acting on a tip, police ordered the man to take a laxative. They discovered he had swallowed several latex bags containing five to eight grams of cocaine each. One gram of cocaine has a street value of about $100, the customs officials said. The arrest was the first drug bust ever at the airport. The 33-year-old man, a resident of Klaipeda, is the first suspected drug courier arrested in Lithuania trying to smuggle drugs in his body.

PILFERED TUNES: Organizers of Latvia's national selection for this year's Eurovision Song Contest have again become suspicious that one of the songs under consideration is plagiarized. A task force is working this week to determine if the song "I Wonna" by singer Marija Naumova comes from Ricky Martin's "She Bangs," according to a spokeswoman for contest organizer Latvijas TV. Allegations of plagiarism surfaced two years ago when organizers determined that the song "Draw Me Closer" by singer Madara Celma was too similar to American singer Karen Carpenter's 1970s hit "Close to You." Celma later said she hoped no one would recognize the song and that she was foolish to try to pass it off. Latvia will make its selection for the contest in March. This year's Eurovision will take place in Estonia in May.

ENVIRONMENTALIST DROWNS: Well-known Lithuanian environmentalist Vytautas Nedzinskas died Feb. 7. He was last seen putting ice skates on as he prepared to watch birds on Zuvintas Lake in southern Lithuania. Nedzinskas, 61, was the manager of the Zuvintas Lake Nature Reserve. Colleagues searched for him when he failed to return as usual at dusk. They then telephoned police. A rescue team found his body in the lake 30 meters from shore. Police believe Nedzinskas fell through the ice, which had softened amid warm temperatures last week. He had headed the Zuvintas reserve since 1965 and wrote eight books and about 1,500 articles on the environment. Zuvintas is famous for rare birds, particularly a nearly extinct breed of swan, and several rare species of marsh plants.

GHOULISH DISCOVERY: Police in Jarva county in north-central Estonia have launched a criminal investigation to determine why a man contracted by local hospitals to dispose of amputated limbs and other medical waste dumped a load of the refuse on his father's farm. Police were alerted to the case when a local resident discovered a human leg on a road in the village of Rasna. Police say the leg was dragged by a dog from a nearby farm, which contained more than 100 plastic bags filled with used syringes, amputated body parts and human organs. The farm's owner said his son had dumped them there. "He said his son put the bags there to be burned later," a police spokesman said.

NKVD AGENT DIES: Former Stalinist agent Karl Leonhard Paulov, who was convicted of the 1945 killing of three Estonia resistance fighters, died in an Estonian prison Feb. 7. He was 77. Paulov, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in June 2000 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, suffered from heart disease, according to a Justice Ministry spokesperson. Paulov was convicted for the October 1945 killing of resistance fighters Alexander Sibul, and Alfred and Aksel Parli. Paulov was a member of the Soviet security force the NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB. He is one of few to have been tried in Estonia for crimes related the Soviet invasion following World War II. During the investigation of Paulov, Estonian authorities uncovered the names of several other agents connected to NKVD activities in Estonia.

DEATH OF A HIJACKER: Algirdas Brazinskas has pleaded not guilty to charges in a California court that he had killed his father, with whom he helped hijack a Soviet passenger plane in the 1970s. Brazinskas, a 46-year-old resident of Santa Monica, California, known by the name Albert Victor White in the U.S., was charged by prosecutors of beating his 77-year-old father Pranas Brazinskas to death in the apartment they shared on Feb. 5. Police came to the Brazinskas residence after the son phoned for help. Paramedics found the body of the elder Brazinskas with injuries to the head. The Los Angeles coroner is conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Police believe the son and father got into a fight, and that the suspect killed his father. Algirdas Brazinskas is being held in a Santa Monica jail without bail. The father and son shot to worldwide notoriety on Oct. 15, 1970, when they hijacked an Aeroflot passenger jet flying from Batu to Sukhumi and redirected it to a Turkish airport in order to escape the Soviet Union. Two armed guards opened fire on the flight deck, killing 24-year-old stewardess Nadezhda Kurchenko and injuring three of the flight crew.