Latest news with #TheOrkneyAssassin:MurderintheIsles
The Irish Sun
11-06-2025
- The Irish Sun
How ‘hitman' assassin stalked quiet UK island… until bombshell letter unmasked astonishing identity of ‘takeaway killer'
WHEN a single gunshot shattered a peaceful summer evening on the remote island of Orkney, the shockwaves would be felt by the close-knit rural community for decades to come. Families were dining in the island's only Indian restaurant when a masked man calmly walked in and killed 26-year-old waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood at point black range, before vanishing into the night without uttering a single word. 16 The murder scene shows a bullet hole in the wall where Mahmood was shot Credit: Coll MacDougall 16 Waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood was murdered with a single bullet in the Mumataz Indian Restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney Credit: Amazon 16 The murder continues to divide the remote UK island Credit: Getty 16 Michael Ross in 1994, shortly after he was first questioned over the murder Credit: Collect The Now an astonishing new Amazon Prime documentary, The Orkney Assassin: Murder in the Isles revisits the bizarre case which saw a local schoolboy, Michael Ross, eventually convicted of the murder. Ross, now 46 years old, never took the stand during his trial at the High Court in Glasgow and has never given any interviews or made a statement before. But as the thirtieth anniversary of the crime approached, he agreed to speak to a local reporter from prison in Aberdeen. He and journalist Ethan Flett struck up a friendly rapport and Ross agreed to answer questions that had never been asked - including why he made four Ethan is the only journalist who has been allowed to visit him. He told The Sun: 'Looking into his eyes was a surreal experience. The meeting will stick in my mind for a while. 'Meeting Ross was just bizarre. 'The paradox is that here was this laid back, polite, easy going decent person who has been convicted of murder. 'The strangest thing about him is how normal he is. He's been taking the gym seriously. Horror moment Scots gangster Ross Monaghan is shot dead by hitman at Spanish pub as staff & punters flee in terror 'But we sat chatting in a room which is like any ordinary school cafeteria - except the furniture is bolted to the floor. 'I'd never been inside a prison before, it was just strange. 'When I initially asked Michael for an interview, he wrote straight back because he realised I knew the case quite well. "I have spent a lot of time looking at it, and the cold case review, but when I went to visit I made it clear that I was not in any way interested in campaigning for his innocence or trying to find someone else guilty. 'I had legitimate concerns about the case, and he was happy to proceed on that basis. He told me he was innocent but I wasn't going to take his word for it - he had been found guilty by a jury Ethan Flett 'He had serious concerns about the credibility of certain witnesses, and that various leads and motives had not been looked into properly because he was the prime and only suspect. 'He told me he was innocent but I wasn't going to take his word for it - he had been found guilty by a jury.' Cloud of suspicion The pair spent six months writing back and forth to each other, with Ross responding to each of Ethan's questions in great detail. During the original murder investigation, 2,736 statements were taken, and a pair of witnesses claimed they saw Ross wearing the same balaclava and dark clothing as the murderer in woodland a fortnight earlier. The 15-year-old was called in for questioning, accompanied by his father - a well respected local police officer, Eddy Ross. Ross proclaimed his innocence - claiming he was out for a bike ride that night and his route did not take him anywhere near the murder scene. 16 Ross continues to protest his innocence and has repeatedly tried to escape jail Credit: PA:Press Association 16 Reporter Ethan Flett visited Ross in prison and struck up a rapport Credit: Amazon It was a time before CCTV or mobile phones, and recalling the night of the murder, Ross confided to Ethan: 'I didn't know what the sirens were for at that point, and didn't think much more about it.' Despite the cloud of suspicion hanging over her son, his mother Moira added that he was "just his normal self' that night. Moira, who believes the real killer remains on the loose, later went upstairs to his bedroom: "I said: 'Did you shoot that man?' and he said 'no' and I just can't get over the look on his face when I asked him that." She maintains her son never set foot in the restaurant. Angus Chisholm was the detective inspector for the then Northern Constabulary in Inverness sent to oversee the manhunt. Unaware of the connection, he tasked Eddy with the ballistic side of the investigation. Its focus became the 9mm bullet casing of the single shot which passed through 26 year-old Mr Mahmood's head and became embedded in the wall. Eddy quickly identified the round as one previously used by the British Army. 16 The murder investigation was led by top cop Angus Chisholm Credit: Amazon 16 Ross with his parents Eddy and Moira during a prison visit in 2012 Credit: Supplied And as the inquiry continued a reconstruction of the murder featured on the BBC's Crimewatch UK. But, unlike most TV appeals, detectives had no description of the gunman. Locals wrestled with various theories but inquiries on the island and in the waiter's native Bangladesh drew a blank. Two months later, Eddy confessed that he had discovered a box of the same 9mm bullets used in the murder - in his own home. In a jaw-dropping revelation, the father-of-three claimed he had been given the box - which was still sealed - by a pal who was a former marine. 16 The Scorpion machine pistol weapon was found in the car hired by Ross Credit: PA:Press Association But when questioned, his friend Jim Spence said he had given Eddy two boxes - one sealed and one half full. In a separate development, a mother and daughter reported they had seen a masked male acting suspiciously in nearby Papdale Woods - and named him as PC Ross' son Michael. Eddy said later: "Basically from that point in time the finger was pointing towards us." But evidence mounted against Michael when cops searched the family home. 'Death to the English' They found school books with Nazi swastikas drawn over them, scribbles saying 'Death to the English' and SS symbols. Although Mahmood had only been on the island for six weeks, and had no known enemies, his family insisted the shooting was racially motivated. Then, in December, Ross was arrested and admitted dropping his balaclava into the sea with a heavy stone attached. But Chisholm said the teenager was unfazed by the gravity of the allegations. 16 The letter sent by witness William Grant led to the enquiry being reopened Credit: Collect 16 Ross was given a further five years for trying to flee court after the verdict Credit: Northpix He recalled: "He was cool, calm and collected." Although there was not enough evidence to charge Ross, the investigation left Eddy's 23 year police career in ruins - he was charged with perverting the course of justice and jailed for three years. Meanwhile Ross left school at the age of 17 and joined his father's old regiment, the Black Watch, progressing through the ranks and eventually becoming the sergeant of a sniper platoon. He married, had two daughters and was even mentioned in dispatches for showing bravery when comrades were killed during a tour of Iraq. And while he remained free, the troubling tale slipped into obscurity. I promise that I saw the person who killed the Indian waiter William Grant But in 2006, 12 years after the murder, the cold case took a fresh twist when an anonymous letter was handed in to the local police station. This was the breakthrough that would lead to Ross's downfall. A new witness, local man William Grant, claimed he saw the killer coming out of a public toilet cubicle on the night of the murder, brandishing a gun. The shock revelation led to Ross's arrest. 'It was disbelief again,' he told Ethan. Hallmarks of professional hit Ross maintained his innocence, and Leah Seator, editor of The Orcadian, said many people on the island thought Ross would walk free. His lawyer argued it was unthinkable that a teenager could have carried out the killing - it had the hallmarks of a professional hit. Prosecutor Brian McConnachie said the case has had a lasting impact on the community which remains divided over his guilt. "I suspect it still does affect people. "I think there's always going to be two sides." 16 Prosecutor Brian McConnachie said the case still divides the island Credit: Amazon 16 The victim's brother Abul Shafuddin Mahmood maintains the murder was racially motivated Credit: Orkney Photographic Archive 16 Witnesses reported seeing the killer in Papdale Woods close to the scene Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd McConnachie described the high profile case as "challenging" but on 20 June 2008 the jury took just four hours to return a guilty verdict - only for the moment to be overshadowed by an audacious escape attempt. As he was about to be led away Ross dramatically knocked over a security guard, and jumped out of the dock. He yanked open a side door and ran, but was tackled by a court official. It later emerged that he had parked a rental car two miles from the court, containing a Skorpion machine pistol with 542 rounds of ammunition - which he had smuggled back from Kosovo - as well as an air rifle, hand grenade, smoke grenades, a sleeping bag, camping equipment and survival gear. There's something unnerving about what was contained within the car Brian McConnachie KC McConnachie added: "If you are trying to look for things that point towards guilt, then you might look at the circumstances of the last day of the trial, and the motor vehicle that he had and the things he had in them when he tried to escape from the court - never mind trying to escape from the prison. "There's something unnerving about what was contained within the car." When Ross returned to court four months later, amid heightened security, he was sentenced to 25 years plus a further five for his bid to flee. 16 Ross's friend Susan Robinson joined the campaign for his release Credit: Michael Schofield - The Sun Glasgow In that time, he has made three further attempts to escape from custody in one of Scotland's highest security prisons. In 2014, he tried to break out of a security van on the way to hospital and, in 2016, he stole an angle grinder from the prison workshop, replacing it with a wooden replica. Most recently, in 2018, the former soldier tried to scale the perimeter fence of a sports field at HMP Shotts in Lanarkshire, using a rope ladder he fashioned. His jacket contained food, clothing and a toothbrush, and he was placed into solitary confinement for a week. 16 The Orcadian newspaper has covered the case for over 40 years Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd Ross's lawyer said he knew the bid for freedom would fail but he wanted to attract attention to his appeal. His conviction was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal however, and in 2014, a review deemed that the soldier had not suffered a miscarriage of justice. He remains incarcerated and his earliest release date is 2035. Looking back at his meetings with Ross, Ethan added: 'I honestly don't know whether he is guilty. 'He answered all my questions openly, I've read his psychiatric reports and he seems sane. He has expressed sorrow in an open letter to the victim's family Ethan Flett 'What I found most interesting was his justifications for his escape attempts. 'He says that he did it to garner a bit of publicity for his claims of innocence, and says that he would have surrendered to the authorities if he were successful. 'He admitted to saying racist things as a teenager, but claimed that it was immaturity that he regretted. 'He has expressed sorrow in an open letter to the victim's family but he does not think it would be appropriate to speak to them directly. 'There's still so much interest in this case from Orkney people, so the story is ongoing.' While the victim's family feel justice has been served, Ross's supporters have set up a petition to clear his name. The shadow of doubt still divides opinion in Orkney to this day. The Orkney Assassin is streaming on Prime Video now.
Metro
08-06-2025
- Metro
The teenage Orkney killer who got away with murder for 14 years
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video It was a beautiful summer evening in Orkney, when a loud gunshot rang out and the peaceful corner of the world changed forever. Families were dining in the only Indian Restaurant in the main town of Kirkwall, when a masked man calmly walked in on June 2 1994 and shot 26-year-old waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood at point-blank range, before vanishing into the night. It was the first murder to happen in 25 years on the island located just off the northern coast of Scotland, which has a population of around 22,000. Detectives arrived overnight, the area was sealed off, and the big question of who could have killed Shamsuddin was at the forefront of the locals' minds. He had no known enemies and had only arrived in Orkney six weeks before, with plans to soon return to Bangladesh to marry his fiancée. An investigation commenced, and 2,736 statements were taken. A pair of witnesses claimed they saw teenager Michael Ross wearing the same balaclava and dark clothing as the murderer in woodland a fortnight earlier. The 15-year-old was called in for questioning, accompanied by his police officer father, Edmund Ross. Michael proclaimed his innocence and provided an alibi – he'd seen friends on the evening of the murder, however, they later denied being in his company. In the Amazon Prime Video documentary The Orkney Assassin: Murder in the Isles , his mother, Moira, recalls asking Michael if he had killed Shamsuddin. 'I remember him coming home with the detective, and he went up to his room and sat there,' she says tearfully. 'I did go up and ask him 'Did you shoot that man?' And he said: 'No'. I just can't get over the look on his face when I asked him that.' Edmund adds, 'My head was spinning at the time. I didn't believe it. I knew my son, and he never showed any sort of tendency to go out and shoot anyone.' Evidence continued to build when Michael admitted dropping his balaclava into the sea with a heavy stone attached, and a bedroom search found school books marked with swastikas, 'Death to the English' scribbles and SS symbols. Meanwhile, Edmund owned the same type of bullets that were used in the murder, but didn't reveal this information until two months after the inquiry had begun. When lead investigator Angus Chisholm asked where they'd come from, he initially claimed he couldn't remember, before later revealing they came from a friend and former Marine, Jim Spence. The findings did not lead to a conviction; however, in 1997, Edmund was imprisoned for four years on charges of lying to the police and tampering with a witness, after it was alleged that he asked Jim to lie. Despite the determination of some detectives, the troubling case began to slip into obscurity. That was until 12 years after the murder in 2006, when a mysterious letter was delivered to the local police station. A new witness, later identified as William Grant, wrote that he had seen the killer in public toilets on the night of the murder, brandishing a gun. He identified him as Michael. Advocate depute Brian McConnachie QC, who led the prosecution case, tells Metro: 'When the incident happened, long before I was ever involved, it was taken to the Crown Office, and a decision was made that there was insufficient evidence against Michael. However, the letter was enough to reopen, and that's when I looked over the case; I didn't necessarily agree with the original decision that evidence wasn't strong enough to proceed with the case.' The revelation led to the shock arrest of Michael, who in the intervening years had married, become a father of two and now worked as a sergeant of a sniper platoon in Scotland's Black Watch regiment. As so much time had passed, it was a 'challenging' case for Brian to take on, he says. 'In cold cases, people who gave statements have forgotten what they said, what they saw, and they may have heard somebody else say something, and that becomes part of their memory.' He adds: 'There wasn't the same amount of CCTV in 1994 as there is now, and people didn't carry mobile telephones. Nowadays, the police solve a lot of crimes because the accused can be pinpointed to be in a particular location through signal.' However, the authorities had enough to bring it the case trial in 2008, where the 'compelling, unanswerable' circumstantial evidence was presented. 'It could be described as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It was trying to find all the different pieces to make the picture. The bullets, his access, and interest in firearms were all important, then we added Mr Grant's identification into it,' says Brian. Although a motive isn't needed to prove someone's guilt, it was suggested that Michael's racist views had led him to shoot one of Orkney's only Asian residents. A fellow cadet claimed Michael said: 'Blacks should be shot'. 'It was such a pointless and senseless killing,' says Brian. 'There wasn't a feud between them, but there was certainly an amount of evidence which suggested that at the relevant time, he had racist tendencies. 'Whether that was something that was genuinely felt or it was just the rantings of a teenager, it's hard to say. I've said in the past that I've never been totally convinced about the racism angle.' During the trial, Michael's lawyer, Donald Findlay, argued it was unthinkable that a teenager would have carried out the killing, claiming it was more likely to be a 'professional hit'. But at the end of a six-week trial, it took jurors just four hours to reach a guilty verdict of murder. At the trial, Shamsuddin's brother, barrister Abul Shafiuddin, said: 'He was our baby brother and at least we know the person who killed him will be punished.' Upon hearing his fate, Michael attempted to escape by jumping out of the dock at Glasgow High Court, assaulting a guard and making it into an outside corridor, before being wrestled to the ground. Days before, he had parked a hired car two miles from the court with a machine gun, hand grenades and a sleeping bag amongst the items found in the boot. He explained in an open letter to supporters that he would have used the items to live off the land. It hasn't been his only attempt to escape punishment either, as he has since tried to leave prison three times. Brian says: 'It's the first time I've seen anything like that from somebody who'd just been convicted of murder. 'If someone thinks they're innocent and is convicted, they might well want to escape, but the fact that he was running to a motor vehicle filled with the items, is a problem. The jury decided his guilt without all of that evidence, but I don't think that helps his position now.' Even so, the case of Shamsuddin's murder is far from over, with a shadow of doubt still dividing opinion in Orkney to this day. Michael's family believe there has been a grave miscarriage of justice, while a petition has been set up by supporters to clear his name, which currently has 2650 signatures. Michael, now 46, remains incarcerated, and his earliest release date is 2035. Orkney local Ethan Flett wasn't even born when the crime took place, but the 25-year-old has spent many hours analysing the case through his role as a reporter for the island newspaper The Orcadian. The journalism took him to Perth prison, where he went through airport-like security, before sitting down at a table that had been screwed into the floor. When Michael entered the visitors' room, Ethan didn't instantly recognise him. 'He's been taking the gym seriously,' the young reporter thought to himself. As they began chatting, Ethan quickly made it clear that he wasn't interested in campaigning for his innocence or trying to find anybody else guilty. Even so, Michael was happy to give his first ever interview. 'The meeting will stick in my mind for a while. He seemed very laid-back and was an easy guy to deal with. It is one of the paradoxes, considering what he's been convicted of, but he seemed at least like a fairly normal person. It's strange,' recalls Ethan to Metro. They spent the next six months writing back and forth to each other, with Michael responding to each of Ethan's questions in great detail. 'What I found most interesting was his justifications for his escape attempts. He says that he did it to garner a bit of publicity for his claims of innocence, and says that he would have surrendered to the authorities if he were successful,' Ethan explains. 'He admitted to saying racist things as a teenager, but claimed that it was immaturity that he regretted.' Ethan adds that the police previously publicly stated that they had ruled out racism as the motive, which 'would make it a motiveless crime, so it's hard to get your head around.' In letters to Ethan, Michael says that the reason the friends mentioned in his alibi don't remember talking to him is that the police didn't question them until months had passed. Ethan's research has also raised some possible inconsistencies, such as when Michael became a suspect. He was questioned about his movements on the night of the murder on December 2 1994. Michael's legal team have said that the audio shouldn't have been allowed in court, as he hadn't been offered a lawyer. The appeal was rejected as it was determined he wasn't a suspect at this point. 'I found court records from the trial of Eddy, which stated that Michael had become the prime and only suspect as of September,' says Ethan. 'There are unsolved leads in the case, such as two days before the murder, there was a heated argument at the door of the restaurant between Shamsuddin and people trying to get in. According to one of the witnesses inside the restaurant, the man threatened to shoot Shamsuddin a number of times. 'A month into the investigation, one of the detectives was quoted as saying that the incident had been cleared up. However, a statement was taken from the detective who led the cold case review when Michael's conviction was examined by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2014, and he said it wasn't solved.' As a journalist, Ethan remains impartial. More Trending 'I don't know whether or not he committed the murder. My interest has always been in the handling of the investigation by the police. There's still so much interest in this case from Orkney people, so the story is ongoing,' he explains. Meanwhile, Brian doesn't think there's enough to appeal the case's verdict: 'I think new evidence becoming available is the only way that it would get back into the court. 'I haven't seen or heard anything yet to make me think that the jury got it wrong.' The Orkney Assassin: Murder in the Isles will be available on Prime Video in the UK & Ireland on June 8 Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. MORE: Rich people 'will have robot butlers by 2030′ – but there's a major flaw MORE: BBC's 'brilliant' true crime drama made me question my own morals MORE: 'Exquisite' Amazon Prime show cancelled after one series despite 85% Rotten Tomatoes score
