New Delhi, March 7 (SocialNews.XYZ) To mark the International Women's Day observed on March 8, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has released the ‘Cyber Security...
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New Delhi, March 7 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Centre has notified the scheme for increasing the financial viability of cooperative sugar mills through interest subvention on bank loans for converting their existing sugarcane-based ethanol plants to multi-feedstock...
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SCOTTISH entertainer Tam Cowan has revealed the heart-rending inside story of Rangers and Scotland hero Andy Goram’s last public appearance.
Cowan compered a night at the Airdrie working men’s club put on for St Andrew’s Hospice – where he spent the last days of his life – Cancer Research UK and the Goram family just nine matters before the man affectionately known as ‘The Goalie’ passed in July 2022.
Originally expecting only a text from the great man, Cowan was as surprised as anyone when pal Frank McAvennie and Goram’s son Danny were able to cajole him down to the venue in person.
Scrupulously insisting on a ‘no cameras’ policy, Cowan says the vision of the football icon is still etched in his memory.
So too was the emotional reaction of the 380-strong crowd as his Gers pals Marvin Andrews and Colin Hendry hoisted his wheelchair up on stage – not to mention Hoops contemporaries present for the Q and A like Peter Grant.
It’s quite a story, and Cowan tells it warts and all in the latest Let’s Be Frank podcast with former Hoops ace McAvennie.
The BBC Scotland Off the Ball host said: “Andy Goram, what a ngiht that was.
“That was one of the most incredible nights. It was a rare time I saw Frank being deadly serious about something.
“When old Andy Goram was on the way out and everybody knew he was dying, he was in St Andrews Hospice for his final weeks. He had also been – and some folk forget – an ex Motherwell player
“Like Frank, I had done a bit of after dinner speaking so I had got to know Andy a wee bit through that way.
“The convenor of the Airdrie working man’s club, in the same town as the hospice, said to me ‘do you fancy putting on a night or something for Andy Goram’? I might talk to Frank about it too.
“We knew that Andy didn’t have any money, his past story has been well documented, we decided if we could do a wee night for Andy we could split it the proceeds between St Andrew’s Hospice, Cancer UK, and the Goram family, money for the funeral basically.
“It was what we thought was going to be a wee nice night, a bit reverential, talking about Andy, but the tickets sold out in about 20 minutes, 380 people rammed into the Airdrie Working Men‘s club
“Frank had been a brilliant help getting a load of the Celtic guys from that era, guys who had played against Andy Goram. And we got a load of guys who had played WITH Andy Goram, guys like Colin Hendry and guys like this.
“I said to Andy in the run up to it I was saying this and he was saying ‘that’s f***ing great Tam, say hello to all the boys for me.
“I said ‘don’t be daft but do you know what will be really nice Andy, text me even just a few words and I will read it out’.
“I thought that would have a bit of impact on the night, you know ‘before we go any further I’ve got a message from Andy, up there in the hospice’.
“Bear in mind, he died nine days later after this event. Which is why I’m coming to the most amazing bit.
“He hadn’t got back to me. There were a couple of texts then a gap, I’m thinking the guy is on the way out.
“Next thing Frank gets back to me on the day of the event, saying Andy is going to come down to the club, I said ‘what?’
“He said ‘Aye, he’s determined to come down’.
“He says we’re going to get him in the big build-up wheelchair, in one of those taxis with the sliding doors. Frank said me and my boy Danny will bring him down.
“This is when I said Frank, who gets lampooned many times, I’ve never seen him as serious. He said ‘you can’t have ANYONE with their phone out’. He doesn’t want to be remembered like this.
“I was like when you give me the thumbs up then I will go into the welcome. There was a wee bit of me like ‘I’m not sure what this guy is going to look like’.
“Like all sports heroes you can only remember them in your prime. There were six or seven Rangers guys, six or seven Celtic.
“I stood up and said ‘At this moment I thought I was going to read you out a wee message from Andy at the hospital‘.
“But remarkably, incredibly, Frank – who’d never been away from him up the hospice – and his boy Danny have managed to get Andy here tonight.
“There was an audible gasp.
“One thing ladies and gentlemen, phones away. We’re going to bring Andy in, he’s not in great shape and he’s not wanting to be remembered as the man you see tonight.
“And everybody concurred, that was it, the phones were away.
“So I said, ladies and gentleman, dah dah dah dah, the big build up, Andy Goram!
“And I will see that for the rest of my life, I am up on the high stage like any working men’s club. 380 folk, they immediately rise, all clapping and cheering whistling. They are all hollering but they can’t actually see him but I can see him. I can see him as if it was yesterday.
“He was away to nothing, honestly. He must have been down to about five and a half stone and very skeletal. Andy’s boy put the wheelchair down in front of me and I am high up on stage, then he looks up and gesticulates like ‘get me up there!’.
“Marvin Andrews and big Colin Hendry they went up and took an edge each of the wheelchair, lifted it onto the stage
“I am watching the audience and the minute they saw him there were tears and not just the women, there were loads of women there that night. Guys were up dabbing their eyes when they saw him.
“When they all went down again, I went down and said to him ‘do you want to say thankyou or speak?’.
“He went ‘oh yeah’. He went into this pocket of a shirt and took out a wee pair of reading glasses, perched on the end of the nose.
“And he took out a scrip and notes. I held the mic at the start but he took it off me when he was comfy.
“In quite a remarkably strong voice he started talking. And the minute he started mentioned any of these guys or Rangers and Celtic, Peter Grant was in bits.
“You ask any guys, or halfwits who take football too seriously, and you’d imagine they were sworn enemies. But Peter Grant what a state he was in, Charlie Miller who clearly adored him. All they could do was come up and hug him.
“This was nine days before he passed away, he must have done half an hour, I said I hope you’re not wanting £500 for this! He was laughing ..
“Also by way of introduction I gave out one of these wee stats I give out from time to time, I said the most amazing thing about Andy Goram.
“I remember seeing him in October 2000, motherwell vs Aberdeen at Fri Park, Andy Goram was in goals for Motherwell, Jim Leighton was in goal for Aberdeen, 134 Scotland caps between them and the final score was 6-5 to Aberdeen.
“Pound for pound, how many times have goalkeepers with that many caps between them conceded 11 goals.
“He [Goram] had been listening the whole time, He said thanks for doing that, even now I look f****** better than Jim Leighton!”
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
THE PRIME suspects in the murder of a Scots businessman were nicked a year ago for abducting and blackmailing a church pastor, we can reveal.
Bernard Mbunga Mbusu, Samuel Musembi Kamitu, and Alphonse Munyao Kilewa were accused of stripping a preacher naked in the terrifying attack last year.
Now Kenyan cops claim the trio have gone on the run after killing Campbell Scott, whose body was found dumped in a forest.
Baffled locals fired questions at detectives on social media after the latest twist in the bizarre murder probe.
Evans Okaalo said: “Aren’t these the same people you handled last February?”
While Ty Trae added: “How did they end up back on the streets? Are we arresting criminals only to set them free to commit worse crimes?”
Last February the Directorate of Criminal investigations said Mbusu, Kamitu and Kilewa pounced on the pastor as he walked to a restaurant in Nairobi.
It was claimed they kidnapped him and ripped his clothes off, before threatening to embarrass him by releasing the snaps online.
Detectives revealed the gang managed to extort 55,000 Kenyan shillings from him, about £330.
In a statement a DCI official said: “The three men accosted him and bundled him in a waiting saloon car.
“Once in the car, the man of the cloth reported he was stripped naked and photos of him taken before he was forced to reveal his pin or the photos would be uploaded on his social media platforms.
“Complying under duress, Sh55,000 was transferred to one of the suspect’s phones and thereafter he was released.”
Cops revealed they raided three addresses and recovered the money as well as the pastor’s mobile phone.
Mbusu, Kamitu and Kilewa were arrested and set to appear in court, but it’s unclear what happened to them after that.
Now they feature in the first public appeal made by cops in the Campbell Scott investigation.
Officers have used the same snaps as when the trio were detained last year.
An official in the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said: “The suspects are linked to the brutal murder of 58-year-old Briton, Campbell Scott.
“Following the heinous crime and subsequent dumping of his body, the trio fled and have since gone into hiding.”
Campbell flew into Nairobi for a work conference before he vanished.
His body was found almost a week later dumped in a secluded forest about 60 miles away. His hands and legs were bound with rope.
It was feared he had been tortured but an autopsy didn’t find any evidence of that and couldn’t work out how he died.
Insiders claimed he may not have been murdered and might have died after taking a “performance enhancing drug”.
Two suspects were arrested over the weekend and accused of stealing £12,000 from his bank accounts.
A magistrate agreed to lock them up for three weeks.
WE are now into the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix!
World No1 Judd Trump is into the semi-final after a 5-0 whitewash over Hossein Vafaei.
He will face Stuart Bingham after the Essex potter fought back from 4-2 down to win a brilliant final frame decider against Mark Selby.
Earlier, John Higgins was dumped out by Shaun Murphy, while Neil Robertson beat Xiao Guodong to reach the final four.
Defending champ Ronnie O’Sullivan will not attempt to defend his crown in Hong Kong after it was revealed at the weekend that he will not return to the table until the World Championship later this year.
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A WOMAN whose brother was murdered and thrown off a cliff “as if his life was worthless” blasted his killers as they were caged for life.
The heartbroken sister of Robin Wilkins said she felt overwhelmed by the lack of remorse shown by her brother’s “very cold, calculating” murderers.
Alan Vial and Nikita Burns were found guilty of 66-year-old Mr Wilkin’s murder on Thursday, and today Mr Justice Paul McDermott sentenced both to the mandatory term of life imprisonment.
Irene McAleer, sister of the deceased, sat through the entire trial and delivered an emotional statement on behalf of herself and her surviving siblings, David and Marie.
Robin was the eldest sibling, she said, and the rest of the family looked up to him.
Irene continued: “Now, as a family, we have been left with nothing but memories of growing up together with Robin, due to the actions of Alan Vial and Nikita Burns.”
She said the “agonising journey” from when a garda called to say they believed Robin and been murdered to the end of the trial has been “filled with grief, denial and undoubtedly anger”.
While the convictions have brought “a certain degree of closure”, she added that the family will never come to terms with the brutal nature of Robin’s death.
Ms McAleer said she felt she owed it to her brother’s memory to sit through the trial, despite the distress she felt.
She added: “Nothing or no one could have prepared me for the evil and harrowing details I have witnessed.
“To sit in the same room as those two very cold, calculating individuals has been so difficult.
“The fact neither of these individuals has shown a grain of remorse has been very overwhelming at times.”
She was sickened, she said, when she heard that Burns had said she hoped the body would not be found and that the victim’s family “wouldn’t bother to come looking for him”.
She was further upset when she heard Vial “mocking” her brother, by declaring during one of his garda interviews it was ironic that Robin had said he wanted to be buried at sea.
Ms McAleer denied that her brother was estranged from his family.
She said: “He was, in fact, just travelling his own path and lost regular touch with us, as many siblings do.
“Robin’s callous and unnecessary murder has deprived us all the chance to reconnect now that our own lives are slowing down.”
Ms McAleer also thanked the gardai and witnesses who came forward to give evidence at the trial.
In particular, she thanked Chris Quinn and Sharon O’Dowd, who told gardai that Nikita Burns had confessed to murdering a man and throwing him off the cliffs at Sliabh Liag.
Without them, she said, Burns and Vial would never have been caught and prosecuted.
Following Ms McAleer’s statement, Mr Justice Paul McDermott offered his condolences to the family before imposing the mandatory life sentences in respect of each defendant.
Vial’s sentence was backdated to July 14, 2023 when he first went into custody. Burns’ sentence was backdated to August 29, 2023.
Vial, 39, from Drumanoo Head, Killybegs and Burns, 23, of Carrick, Co Donegal had pleaded not guilty to Mr Wilkin’s murder in Donegal on June 25, 2023.
A jury found each guilty of murder by majority, ten to two, verdicts following a two-month trial.
The trial heard that Mr Wilkin suffered severe head injuries after being struck multiple times with a rock at an area known as Roshin, near Killybegs.
His killers then drove to Sliabh Liag where they put him over the cliffs and disposed of his neck chain, watch and other personal items.
A FROM Russia with lust spy ring who carried out espionage operations for Vladimir Putin’s regime while bedding each other are facing jail.
Two women, known as the “killer sexy brunettes,” were in a love triangle with a leading member of the cell of six Bulgarian spies living and working in the UK.
The group plotted honeypot stings and conducted spying missions on behalf of Russia across Europe from Britain for lavish sums of money.
The spy ring was run by former city tech worker Orlin Roussev, 46, from a guest house he owned in Great Yarmouth and targeted Putin’s opponents as well as assisting the Russian war effort against Ukraine.
Glamorous lab assistant Katrin Ivanova, 33, and beautician Vanya Gaberova, 30, were today convicted at the Old Bailey of espionage offences under the Official Secrets Act.
Gaberova’s painter and decorator ex-boyfriend Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, of Enfield, North London, was also convicted of spying charges.
The group engaged in a series of surveillance and intelligence operations over three years in which they were referred to as Despicable Me’s yellow sidekicks the Minions.
Gaberova was having an affair with Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, who ran the ground operations of the spy ring and in a relationship with Ivanova in Harrow, North West London.
Dzhambazov secretly moved mistress Gaberova into a flat near his work as a delivery driver at a blood testing laboratory in Euston.
At one point he pretended to Ivanova that he had a brain tumour in order to explain his absences while romping with beautician Gaberova.
He even appeared on a video call with Ivanova wearing a bandage -claiming he had just had an operation – with Gaberova clearly visible in the picture.
When cops arrested Dzhambazov, they found him naked in bed with Gaberova at her flat.
Dzhambazov pleaded guilty to spying before the trial began along with Roussev, who ran the spy network from the 33-room Haydee Guesthouse, close to the seafront at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
Cops found a “treasure trove” of spying equipment at the boarding house in a room he called his ‘Indiana Jones cave.’
A sixth member of the spy ring, mixed martial arts fighter Ivan ‘The Rock’ Stoyanov ,33, of Greenford, West London, also admitted spying.
It can now be revealed how the operation was controlled from Moscow by a fugitive Austrian businessman, Jan Marsalek, on behalf of Russia’s GRU military intelligence and the FSB state security service.
Marsalek, 43, was the former chief operating officer of a finance and tech company called Wirecard which collapsed in 2020 amid allegations of a £1.6bn fraud.
He lived in a Munich mansion but fled to Moscow after German authorities issued a warrant for his arrest.
The Bulgarian spies all had EU settled status enabling them to travel freely across Europe from the UK.
They were recruited by Roussev and paid handsomely for their clandestine work for Russia which jurors heard had put “many lives at risk.”
The network operated between August 2020 and February 2023 at locations including London, Valencia, Vienna, Montenegro and Stuttgart.
They also conducted surveillance on a US base in Germany where they believed Ukrainian soldiers were being trained to operate Patriot missile air defences.
‘Chief Minion’ Ivanova took videos of the military facility’s entrances, exits and security measures – though claimed she had only gone there for a “romantic holiday” with partner Dzhambazov.
The spy network also helped supply Russia with drones, laptops and military equipment in order to help Putin’s gangster state evade sanctions.
And they mounted surveillance operations on dissidents and individual enemies of Russia, with the help of a corrupt employee at the Swissport baggage handling company tracking flights of targets.
Among their targets was journalist Christo Grozev, who revealed the identities of the GRU agents who poisoned MI6 double agent Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia with Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018.
The journalist was followed by Dzhambazov and “Brunette Twins” Ivanova and Gaberova to Austria, Bulgaria and then Spain, where he was attending a ‘Journalists Against Russian Aggression’ conference.
Gaberova got into a cab behind Mr Grozev’s at Valencia Airport and told the driver: “Follow that taxi.”
The spies planned to set up the married journalist in a honeypot trap with Gaberova, who befriended him on Facebook.
They also plotted to make a porn film starring Gaberova for Mr Grozev to view online.
Network boss Roussev told his controller Marsalek: “We can definitely record something for Pornhub too, that girl is real hot. She’s a swinger too.”
He added: “Vanya is very, very assertive and strongly independent …true sexy b***h.”
Dzhambazov also flew to Montenegro with his mistress to spy on Kirill Kachur, a Moscow official wanted by Russia for embezzlement.
In messages, controller Marsalek said he wanted Mr Kachur to be kidnapped and brought back to Moscow and did not mind if he “died by accident” on the journey.
Another target was journalist Roman Dobrokhto, co-founder of Russian magazine ‘The Insider.’
Roussev and Marsalek discussed spraying him with ricin to “burn him alive.”
Marsalek paid cryptocurrency to Roussev who forwarded £173,000 in Euros to Dzhambazov, who in turn passed on £36,700 to partner Ivanova and £24,000 to his mistress Gaberova.
Lowly ‘Minons’ Ivanchev and Stoyanov received £13,500 and £9,750 respectively.
Metropolitan Police head of counter-terrorism Commander Dominic Murphy said after the case : “This was spying on an almost industrial scale on behalf of the Russian intelligence services.
“Lots of their activity goes to the very heart of the freedoms and national security that we need to try and protect here in the UK.”
He added that the early stages of the investigation “almost felt like you were reading something that you expect to read in a spy novel.”
Ivanova was also convicted of possessing nine false identity documents.
The six spies will all be sentenced at a later date.
