Milestones

HANNAH BEECHDISCOVERED. SUCHOMIMUS TENERENSIS,100 million years old, a previously unknown fish-munching dinosaur that shook the earth with its five-ton frame, in a 70% complete skeletal form; in central Niger. The Suchomimus, which resembles an overgrown mutant crocodile, is a member of the mysterious spinosaur clan, of which there are only a few other fragmentary fossils.INDICTED. CHARLIE TRIE,43, Arkansas restaurateur turned Democratic fundraiser, on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation; in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Bill Clinton's longtime friend also faces charges of directing illegal contributions to the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 presidential campaign. Nearly $1.3 million in donations raised by Trie were returned by the Democrats and Clinton's legal defense fund after questions about their legality.SENTENCED. CHEUNG TZE-KEUNG,43, ostentatious Hong Kong mob boss better known as Big Spender, who abducted two Hong Kong tycoons for ransoms totaling some $210 million, to death, for kidnapping and arms smuggling; in Guangzhou, China. In Hong Kong, where most of Cheung's crimes were committed, legal experts questioned China's jurisdiction over the case and blasted the territory's government for not protecting Hong Kong's judicial independence. Many fear that Hong Kong residents will now be prosecuted in China for crimes committed in the former British enclave, which doesn't have the death penalty.DIED. JEAN MARAIS,84, chiseled French cinematic legend, who enchanted surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau and generations of movie-goers with his swashbuckling performances and incandescent stage presence; in Cannes (see Appreciation, below).DIED. JOHN HUNT,88, selfless English leader of the landmark 1953 Mt. Everest expedition, who stayed behind at the advance base camp as Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the final 340-m ascent to the summit; in Henley, England. A professional soldier born in colonial India, Hunt inspired the expedition by combining meticulous logistical planning with an ability to convince his band of eager climbers--all of whom wanted to reach the top first--that they were, above all, a team.KILLED. MIGUEL PEREIRA DE MELO,45, crusading Brazilian photojournalist, whose arresting shots of a 1996 peasant massacre jolted the government into arresting 159 police officers, by a gunman, just weeks before he was expected to testify in the officers' trial; in Maraba, Brazil. Melo's photographs of farmers' bodies piled high in a truck refocused attention on the plight of landless rural workers, and tens of thousands of Brazilians protested last spring when delays held up the officers' planned court date.ARRESTED. CARLOS CABAL PENICHE,46, fugitive Mexican financier, whose questionable deal- ings led to the collapse of the Cremi-Union banking empire and helped trigger the 1994 Mexican peso crisis, by Australian Federal Police; in a Melbourne suburb, where he was renting a mansion and posing as a cheese and wine dealer. Cabal Peniche, who topped Mexico's most-wanted list, was nabbed after a four-year manhunt by Interpol and the FBI. He is accused of fraud involving $700 million and suspected of money-laundering.He was the epitome of male beauty, tall and athletic, with blue eyes, thick blond hair and a cavernous voice that made housewives and schoolgirls quiver--even though he was an avowed homosexual.His lover and muse, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, once said that the most remarkable thing about JEAN MARAIS was his childlike innocence. Yet if he embodied youth and vigor in many of his 60-odd films, including L'Eternel Retour (1943), Orpheus (1950) and Le Bossu (1959), Marais was no less convincing as the hirsute monster in Beauty and the Beast (1946) and, in his later years, the aged patriarchs of Peau d'Ane (1970), King Lear (1978) and his final film, Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (1996).Twice rejected by France's top drama schools, Marais was 24 when he met the man who would make him famous. Like Cocteau, Marais was also a talented painter, sculptor and writer. Life is unfair, he said in a 1996 interview. I got nothing but the best.By Thomas Sancton