The Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) has partnered with the National Competitiveness Commission (NCC) to enhance fair pricing in public procurement and reduce overspending and leakages. As the largest buyer of goods and services in the country, the government pays private suppliers hundreds of millions of dollars annually for procurement, however faces risks associated […]
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HADI CHOOPAN is a well decorated professional bodybuilder known by many as the “Persian Wolf.”
Taking first place at the 2024 Arnold Classic, the former Mr Olympia continues to win competitions, however the bodybuilder hasn’t always had it so easy.
Born on September 26, 1987, Hadi Choopan is an Iranian professional bodybuilder.
He uses the nickname the Persian Wolf due to his roots and indomitable spirit.
The Persian Wolf competes in the men’s open bodybuilding division in the IFBB Pro League.
From the small town of Abnow, in southern Iran, Hadi had to grow up fast to help combat the strain of poverty on his family.
They put him to work from an early age, and the physical demands of his construction job contributed to Hadi developing an interest in bodybuilding.
By the turn of the century, at just 13 years old, he was already a professional.
And just five years later in 2005, he won his first national title, marking his rise in the sport.
Despite being shorter than many of his rivals, standing at 5ft 7″ – Hadi continued to build an impressive record in the sport.
In 2013, Hadi took home gold three years running in the WBPF World Bodybuilding Championships.
The IFBB Pro bodybuilder’s career took a significant step forward in 2017 when he began training with coach Hany Rambod.
That year he secured a gold medal at Mr Olympia Amateur, gaining him international recognition as “The Persian Wolf.”
In 2019, Hadi won the IFBB Vancouver Pro and placed third in his Mr Olympia debut – winning People’s Champion Award at the show.
Hadi continued to make waves, taking 4th and 3rd places at the show in 2020, and 2021, where he won the People’s Champion Award for the second time.
The following year Hadi was crowned Mr Olympia, by defeating 26 competitors and snagging the title from reigning champion Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssibay.
During the 2023 Mr Olympia finals, Hadi lost his title to Derek Lunsford, taking second place at the show.
Unable to hide his disappointment after losing the title, Hadi removed his silver medal and walked off stage, which critics later cited as poor sportsmanship.
He received both equal measure of support and criticism from the bodybuilding community following his outburst.
Hadi fans also received criticism for directing online abuse at Lunsford and his family.
In 2024, at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Sports Festival, Hani won first place.
Hadi who weighs an impressive 100kg, (15 stone and 10lbs) refers to his wife as “my lady” on social media.
He pinned a family photo of his wife and their three children on his Instagram grid, with a caption to mark his affection:
It reads: “My lady is the best companion of my life.
“I love you my dear. Thank you for all your hard work and everything.
“Your patience and effort for a better life, you are the hero of my life, lady.”
A DRUGS kingpin who went on a date with a rookie cop before she had an affair with a married police chief has been revealed as a First Dates star.
Joseph Shaw wooed Caitlin Howarth, 24, after the pair met on Tinder while his brother was serving time behind bars.
They enjoyed “one date” together before Howarth messaged West Yorkshire Police chief superintendent Daniel Greenwood for advice.
Greenwood, 41, has admitted gross misconduct over his relationship with Howarth.
A tribunal heard he told the student officer: “He won’t stop until he’s s***ged you. That’s not ok.”
Used car salesman Shaw was jailed for six-and-a-half years in January 2023 for his role in a £1.5million drug ring with brother Daniel.
He appeared on First Dates in 2017 and stunned viewers when he revealed he had already met his blind date on the train and that they had spent the night together.
Howarth was investigated by West Yorkshire Police over her alleged links to the jailed heroin dealer.
She was charged with misconduct in a public office and was due to stand trial next year but the Crown Prosecution Service has dropped the case against her.
Howarth, who has resigned from the force, is still subject to a misconduct investigation.
The tribunal into Greenwood was told he abused his position by embarking on a relationship with the rookie, who was 17 years younger and under his command.
The pair exchanged racy snaps and Greenwood, who has resigned from the force, broke Covid rules to meet with her at the flat she shared with her boyfriend.
They had sex in January 2021 – shortly after Howarth’s 21st birthday – and again in July 2021.
Rumours and “tittle-tattle” began to spread about the pair among junior officers in the force, the tribunal heard.
Suspicions were also raised higher up when Greenwood personally delivered her uniform and attended Howarth’s occupational health appointment.
When the tryst came to light in November 2021, he attempted to perform a factory reset on his iPhone in a bid to conceal the evidence.
He was suspended and it emerged at the hearing yesterday that Greenwood, whose wife is sticking by him, has since resigned.
The panel said Greenwood abused “an obvious position of trust and responsibility” and deliberately concealed the relationship from superiors.
They explained Howarth, referred to as Miss A in the tribunal, was “vulnerable due to her young age and very junior rank”.
Panel chair Craig Hassall KC added: “He was her self appointed mentor and latterly her district commander.
“We are entirely satisfied that the former officer’s conduct did amount to an abuse of his position for a sexual purpose.”
The tribunal ruled Greenwood would have been dismissed had he not quit his £103,000-a-year job two days ago.
He will still be able to keep his pension as he has not been charged with a criminal offence.
But Greenwood will be added to the College of Policing barred list – preventing him from ever again work in policing.
The officer was described as being a “high-functioning alcoholic” who was suffering from undiagnosed complex post-traumatic stress.
Greenwood first joined the MoD police in 2003, before transferring to West Midlands Police in 2004.
He later took a role with West Yorkshire Police in 2006 and was made chief inspector six years later.
The cop was appointed chief superintendent in 2020 and had been tipped to become an assistant chief constable.
Delivering his conclusions, Mr Hassall said: “No-one could fail to feel sympathy for the former officer’s family for the effect that his misconduct has had on them.
“No-one could fail to feel sympathy in relation to the trauma that has precipitated the former officer’s mental ill health”.
IT was the case that gripped America – wealthy well-connected parents gunned down in cold blood by their handsome sons.
Greed had driven spoiled brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez to slaughter their parents in a bid to get their hands on their £10million inheritance, said the prosecution.
But the boys claimed they killed in self-defence after years of sexual and emotional abuse by their controlling father Jose.
After seven years and three trials, televised to millions, the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Now 35 years on a new Netflix drama revisits the case, as some supporters believe the brothers should never have been convicted of murder at all.
It was 20 August 1989 when Jose and Kitty Menendez sat down to watch a movie in their lavish Beverly Hills mansion that had once been home to Sir Elton John and Michael Jackson.
Just hours later they were dead – brutally murdered by 15 rounds from two 12-gauge shotguns.
The killings were so barbaric that police initially thought it was a mob hit.
On arrival, cops found a seemingly distraught Erik sobbing on the lawn and the brothers told police they had gone out to watch a movie but had to detour home to pick up his ID.
That, they claimed, was when they uncovered the shocking murder scene of their parents’ decimated bodies and called 911.
But in the months after the murders, neither of the brothers acted like grieving boys who had found their parents brutally slain in pools of their own blood.
Instead they went on a spending spree with 21-year-old Lyle snapping up a Porsche, a Rolex watch and a restaurant and 18-year-old Erik treating himself to a Jeep Wrangler and a private tennis coach.
It was estimated they spent £530,000 ($700,000) in a matter of months.
But money cannot buy you peace or happiness and it was the younger sibling Erik who was first to crack.
In a state of distress he contacted his former therapist Dr Jerome Oziel and eventually confessed to killing his parents.
Oziel confided in his mistress Judalon Smyth what Erik had told him.
And eventually the therapist got both Erik and Lyle on tape confessing to the murders, with Erik saying they had done it to put their mother “out of her misery”.
But when Smyth and Oziel fell out, with Smyth claiming he had attacked her, she contacted Beverly Hills police to reveal the Menendez brothers’ confession.
Lyle was arrested and Erik flew back from a tennis tournament in Israel to hand himself in.
It took two years of legal wrangling to decide whether the confession tapes fell under patient-doctor privilege, but the Supreme Court of California later ruled that two of the tapes were admissible in court.
The trials began in 1993 and were broadcast on a relatively new cable channel Court TV.
With the heady mixture of a rich family torn apart by scandal, a gruesome murder, celebrity connections, Beverly Hills glitz and two handsome young men on trial it became a real-life soap opera that gripped America.
“[The Menendez trials] probably had the effect, maybe good, maybe bad, of demonstrating that, even if you didn’t have a celebrity, if the circumstances were dramatic enough, people will be captivated,” Steve Brill, the founder of Court Tv, told Rolling Stone in 2017. “We’ve had lots of trials like that since, but that was really the one that proved that people would be interested in watching big trials.”
From the outside, the Menendez family looked the epitome of the American dream.
Jose came to the States from Cuba after the revolution, living in his cousin’s attic until he won a swimming scholarship to Southern Illinois University.
There he met Kitty, a pageant beauty queen, and they married, moving to New York after graduation where Jose rose to head of RCA records, helping to sign bands such as Duran Duran and the Eurythmics.
The couple, along with their young sons, then moved to LA where Jose had secured a job in the movie business.
By the time of his death he was worth £10.5million ($14m).
And it seemed that their good-looking sons also had bright futures ahead.
Both were talented tennis players with Erik being nationally ranked in his age group.
But behind the scenes ambitious and controlling dad Jose was taking pushy parenting to the next level, driving his kids to succeed in every area of their lives.
His competitiveness had the opposite effect. Soon Erik rebelled, taking part in a string of burglaries.
He managed to stay out of jail but was ordered to take part in therapy sessions with Dr Jerome Oziel.
Then Lyle was suspended from Princeton university for plagiarism.
20th August 1989 – Erik and Lyle Menendez claim they returned home from the movies to find their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez shot to death in their Beverly Hills mansion.
8th March 1990 – Lyle is arrested on suspicion of killing his parents, having confessed to his therapist; authorities wait for Erik to return from a tennis tournament in Israel.
11th March 1990 – Erik returns from Israel and surrenders at Los Angeles International Airport.
12th March 1990 – Murder charges are filed against Menendez brothers. District Attorney Ira Reiner says the two killed their parents in hopes of inheriting their multi-million pound fortune.
26th March 1990 – The brothers plead not guilty to murder.
8th December 1992 – The brothers are indicted for murder.
20th July 1993 – Opening statements begin in the trial. The brothers are accused of premeditated murder, while they argue it was self-defence, claiming they were sexually abused by their father.
10th August 1993 – Psychologist Dr. L. Jerome Oziel says the brothers confessed to killing their parents in therapy with him in 1989.
3rd December 1993 – Testimony in the brothers’ trial ends after 101 witnesses across five months.
28th January 1994 – After a record 25 days of deliberations, the jury remained deadlocked over whether it was murder or manslaughter, and Superior Court Judge Stanley declared a mistrial.
11th October 1995 – The brothers are tried in front of a new jury. Erik’s lawyer says the brothers killed in self-defence after years of horrific abuse from their father.
16th February 1996 – Judge Weisberg effectively bars the jury from returning manslaughter verdicts for the slaying of Kitty, but allows the jury to return a manslaughter verdict for Jose’s death. He also rules that jurors won’t be able to consider the brothers’ claim that they killed because they believed their parents were about to kill them.
20th March 1996 – The jury convicts both brothers of first degree murder with special circumstances.
17th April 1996 – Brothers sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
But were these two spoiled brats railing against an authoritarian father? Or was there something more sinister going on behind closed doors?
While the prosecution’s case was that the brothers bought guns and plotted to kill their parents for their fortunes after believing their dad was about to disinherit them, the boys had a much more harrowing version of events.
They claimed that Jose had sexually molested them both – Lyle from the age of six to eight, and Erik from the age of six to 18.
In the days before the murders the family’s secrets spilled out, with Erik telling Lyle about his ongoing abuse.
Lyle said he confronted his father and threatened to tell the police and the family that he had abused them both.
Lyle claimed Jose’s reaction made them believe he was going to kill them – so they had to get in first.
The brothers were tried separately – and both juries could not agree whether they were guilty of murder or manslaughter.
A third joint trial began in 1995 and found the siblings guilty of murder. They were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Their wish to be jailed in the same prison was refused, and for twenty years they weren’t even allowed to speak on the phone.
All their appeals so far have failed, but in 2018 Lyle was allowed to join his brother at the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Both brothers managed to find love despite being behind bars for life, eventually marrying their prison pen pals.
Erik’s wife Tammi was already married when started writing to him in jail.
In a bizarre twist she then discovered her husband had been molesting her daughter. He later took his own life.
She was comforted by Erik and the pair eventually wed.
Lyle has been married behind bars twice – first in 1996 to Anna Erikkson who divorced him in 2001 claiming he had been ‘cheating’ on her with another woman.
He went on to marry Rebecca Sneed in 2003.
But despite their crimes taking place 35 years ago, in recent years the brothers have become infamous again – thanks to TikTok.
In 2020, Court TV posted the entire court footage online and clips ended up on the social media site loved by teens and 20-somethings.
Countless viral videos and podcasts talk about the brothers, bolstering a campaign for a retrial, based on the brothers’ claims that they had told other people about their father’s abuse years earlier.
The new evidence includes a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin, Andy Cano, in December 1988, about eight months before the crime.
The letter reads, in part, “I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. … Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. … I’m afraid. … He’s crazy. He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle.”
The brothers’ supporters say the years of abuse they suffered means they should have been convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, received a much shorter sentence and should now be free men.
And the new Netflix drama is sure to further ignite interest in their case.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is on Netflix now
A SCI-FI drama has been axed after just one series – having received mixed reviews from its audience.
Orphan Black: Echoes aired a ten-episode first series earlier this year, but will not be returning.
While set in the same universe as smash hit Orphan Black, viewers’ opinions of the show have been divided.
Unlike the parent series, Echoes didn’t garner the same fervent following.
The show debuted to a 60% Rotten Tomatoes score by critics, while ranking even lower with fans.
It followed Dr Kira Manning (Keeley Hawes), the now-adult granddaughter of Orphan Black protagonist Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany).
She and her wife, Dr Eleanor Miller (Rya Kihlstedt), worked together to help an amnesiac woman (Krysten Ritter).
Amanda Fix, Avan Jogia and James Hiroyuki Liao completed the main cast.
It comes as viewers took to Reddit to share their reactions to the show.
One penned: “I’m about three episodes in, and while I’ll likely watch through the season, it feels more like somebody developed a separate show about clones and then they slapped the OB name on it and threw some callbacks in.”
Another commented: “I barely made it through the first episode, waited a day and watched the second episode and I’m going to give up.
“It really does not grab my attention even with the episode ending reveals – it’s not a surprise to anyone who watched the original series.”
A third chimed in: “The overall plot/concept isn’t really compelling to me.
“I only really cared about Kira’s plotline (episode 5 was great), but that’s pretty much it.
“I don’t think I’ll continue watching. It’s a shame since I’ve loved Kristen Ritter since Jessica Jones.
“This doesn’t feel very Orphan Black to me, and it isn’t the lack of Maslany even, the tone, pacing, concepts, plot…. everything.”
A fourth remarked: “I only watched 2 episodes and I fell asleep at the end of the second.
“It’s ok, but It’s not OB.”
Others had a more positive view, as one said: “It gets better from episode 5 on. It’s a solid show, just not Orphan Black.”
Another opined: “I’m on episode 6 and I love it!
All ten episodes of Orphan Black: Echoes are available to stream on ITVX in the UK. The show aired on AMC, AMC+ and BBC America in the US.
