Madrid  - Recently, a man with his face partly covered by a cap and scarf entered room 537 at a hospital in the Spanish capital Madrid.

"Are you Leonidas Vargas?" he asked one of the two patients in the room with a South American accent. The patient pointed to the man sleeping in the other bed.

"Turn your back and keep quiet," the visitor instructed, turned towards the other patient, and shot him four times with a gun equipped with a silencer.

Bogota/Madrid - Gunmen have killed the brother of a Colombian drug trafficker who was shot dead at a Spanish hospital a few days earlier, Colombian and Spanish media reported Wednesday.

Fabio Vargas, 46, was brother to Leonidas Vargas, 59, once a powerful cocaine lord known as the King of Caqueta.

The body of Fabio Vargas was found on a roadside in a rural area in Valle del Cauca department, Colombian authorities said.

Vargas, who carried a fake identity document had been shot numerous times, as was his young actress girlfriend.

Madrid  - Spanish champions Real Madrid have officially denied that club president Ramon Calderon was engaged in vote-rigging at the club's annual general assembly on 7 December.

Sports daily Marca alleged on Tuesday that Calderon had "stolen the assembly", by sneaking in several fans not qualified to be delegates.

Marca claims that Calderon's proposed club budget only passed because of the votes of these fans, who have not been club members long enough to be delegates - or were not even club members at all.

Madrid - Educated at the best universities, young, brilliant, family-loving and convinced of the power of public relations: such is Adam Helfant, the new strongman of men's tennis.

Adam S Helfant, 44, a US citizen and a former employee of sports gear giant Nike, will have to push into oblivion the failed experiment around the South African Etienne de Villiers, who quarrelled with a large portion of the players, including the top ranking players, Spaniard Rafael Nadal and the Swiss Roger Federer.

"Both support him, and that is good," a man who often talks to Nadal and Federer told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa with reference to Helfant.

Madrid  - The number of undocumented immigrants known to have tried to enter Spain dropped by 24 per cent to about 37,000 people in 2008, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Monday.

Madrid  - Sevilla moved up to second in the Spanish Liga on Saturday with a comeback 3-1 win away to Deportivo Coruna, together with Valencia's 3-3 draw at home to local rivals Villarreal later on