LONDON _ British officials on Friday confirmed reports that Farzad Bazoft, the Iranian-born journalist hanged as a spy by Iraq, was a convicted a bank robber who had been sentenced in 1981 to 18 months in a British jail. The Observer's editor, Donald Trelford, for whom Bazoft was working said, "Farzad was a reporter who died a horrible death without a fair trial or appeal. Any attempt to justify his execution or deflect the world's attention from this brutal fact is beneath contempt."U.S.: Boycott Libya plant rebuilding WASHINGTON _ The Bush administration called on other industrial nations Friday to deny Libya the technology and equipment it will need to rebuild the fire-damaged factory suspected of producing poison gas. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney suggested that the fire was the result of blunders by the Libyan work force instead of sabotage, as Gadhafi has charged. The Rabta plant was damaged extensively and apparently put out of operation by the fire. Officer faces charge in Panama shooting WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Army is preparing to charge a U.S. soldier with murdering a Panamanian civilian during the December invasion, a U.S. defense official said Friday. The official, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a report to be published Monday in Army Times that an unidentified senior non-commissioned officer would be charged in connection with a shooting at a roadblock in Panama. Elsewhere . . . MANAGUA, Nicaragua _ Nicaraguan President-elect Violeta Chamorro said Friday she had invited both President Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to her April 25 inauguration. She did not say whether either had accepted the invitation. WASHINGTON _ Hundreds of armed Contra rebels have re-entered Nicaragua in recent weeks, defying the wishes of their country's president-elect and of the United States, a U.S. government source said. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti _ Haiti's new interim president, Supreme Court Justice Ertha Trouillot, installed 11 members of a civilian Council of State that will rule the country until elections are held. ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada _ Nicholas Brathwaite, who led a 13-month interim government after the U.S.-led invasion of Grenada in 1983, was sworn in as prime minister following a national election. BOGOTA, Colombia _ Colombia formally protested the U.S. Coast Guard's seizure and search of a Colombian freighter suspected of carrying cocaine in the Caribbean. After a six-hour search, U.S. officials found no cocaine in the ship's cargo hold. VATICAN CITY _ Sholom Comay, president of the American Jewish Committee, urged Pope John Paul II to make a bold gesture to help Middle East peace by recognizing Israel and going to Jerusalem as a peacemaker like former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. LONDON _ An art dealer paid a record auction price of $761,500 for a British watercolor of Hampton Court Palace on the Thames River by J.M.W. Turner, Sotheby's said. The auction house said the drawing was sent to it by an anonymous family in Sweden. BOMBAY, India _ Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, one of India's most prominent political figures, resigned from Prime Minister V.P. Singh's administration, threatening to split the ruling coalition. GENEVA _ Dr. Jonathan Mann, the American expert who has led the World Health Organization's battle against AIDS, announced he is resigning because of major differences with WHO's director-general, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima of Japan.