The ice-cold killer

The largest of the Orkney Islands, an archipelago of 70 islands, is Mainland, whose main town is Kirkwall with over 7,000 inhabitants. In the summer of 1994, a terrible crime took place in this tranquil little town, which was only solved decades later. On June 2, 1994, businessman Donald Glue and his family visited the Indian restaurant Mumutaz Tandoori on Bridge Street in Kirkwall. As usual, they were served by the friendly waiter, 26-year-old Shamol Mahmood. When he brought their food to the table at around 7:15 p.m., a man wearing a hoodie and balaclava came running straight towards Shamol. He pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. Then he fled the restaurant. Donald Glue and his brother-in-law immediately gave chase. But the killer managed to escape. Shamol was shot in the left eye through his glasses. The bullet pierced his head and lodged in the wall. A single bullet casing fell onto the carpet. Shamol was killed instantly. Who had killed the always friendly Shamol, and why? Shamsuddin, known as Shamol, was the youngest of seven sons born in Dhaka to a family of 11 children. At the age of 24, he had completed his bachelor’s degree in economics at the National University of Bangladesh. He had a steady girlfriend who was studying medicine. But after a heated argument with his friends, he decided in 1992 to travel to London to join his brother, who was working there as a lawyer. Shamol now wanted to study law as well. But Shamol quickly grew bored with his studies. He moved to Southampton, where he earned a living as a waiter. In 1993, he visited the Orkney Islands. There he read that the Indian restaurant Mumutaz Tandoori was looking for a waiter. He spontaneously applied for the job and lived in Kirkwall for nine months. There, he not only fell in love with the rugged rocky landscape, but also found a girlfriend. After the season, he traveled to London to stay with his brother, where he worked as a waiter again. But soon a dispute arose between the brothers because Shamol did not want to continue his law studies. He wanted to return to Kirkwall to live with his new girlfriend, which he did after the dispute. In April 1994, Shamol had returned to Kirkwall, where he was once again working as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. Six weeks had passed since then when he was killed in cold blood on that summer evening. Detective Superintendent George Gough believed he would be able to solve the murder quickly. After all, there were 14 witnesses in the restaurant and seven witnesses who had seen the perpetrator. But the statements were so different that they did not help the police. After all, the last murder had been 25 years ago. Kirkwall was considered a safe town where everyone knew everyone else. The police investigated at full speed and cordoned off the island after the investigation team from Inverness arrived to assist with the murder investigation. Shamol’s murder resembled a contract killing. Was Shamol involved in drug deals? Witnesses testified that they had seen two men arguing in front of the Indian restaurant at midnight. A woman who had a similar phone number to the restaurant had also received a death threat. Shamol, who worked as a waiter, had large sums of money at his disposal. He had even lent £3,000 to his brother in London, who wanted to renovate his house, and he had lent the same amount to his new girlfriend. Where did the money come from? Was the murderer an ex-boyfriend of his new girlfriend who wanted to eliminate his rival? But investigations into Shamol’s life revealed no evidence that he was involved in any kind of shady business, nor that he had any disputes with anyone. Since the murder resembled an execution, the motive may have been racial hatred. There was no other explanation. The owner of the Indian restaurant, Moina Miah, and his family were placed under police protection. The only hot lead the police had was the bullet and its casing found at the scene of the crime. Weapons expert Constable Edmund Ross was assigned to identify the bullet. Eddy, as he was known, confiscated all weapons on the mainland and conducted tests. But there were no matches. The 9-millimeter bullet came from the army, which had rejected it after testing because it was not of high enough quality. How did such a bullet end up in Kirkwall? Two months after the murder, on August 12, 1994, Eddy confessed to Detective Inspector Chisholam that he had a sealed box containing exactly such ammunition. At first, he did not want to say how he had come into possession of the bullet, nor why he had kept it secret for so long. During a search of his home, the police found the sealed box containing the full number of 35 bullets. It had been given to him by his school friend, a retired Royal Navy officer, James Spence, who confirmed the statement. In the meantime, a mother and daughter had contacted the police to report seeing a young man wearing a balaclava and hoodie in a wooded area next to their house two weeks before the murder. Papdale Woods is located between the local secondary school and the boarding school. The young man was imitating military maneuvers. This was confirmed by seven secondary school students. But no one knew who he was. Then, three months later, the mother and daughter saw the man coming out of a bakery in Kirkwall. They called the police, who checked the bakery’s CCTV security footage. The result was an incredible sensation. The young man was 15-year-old Michael Ross, Eddy’s son. Michael, who attended the local secondary school, was a military fan, like the rest of his family. Like his brother, he was a member of the local army cadets and regularly took part in shooting practice. The police searched Michael Ross’s room. There they found a balaclava and a deactivated 9-millimeter submachine gun hanging on the wall, which was a gift from his father. A notebook with swastikas was also found. Michael Ross was questioned by the police on September 24, 1994. He denied having anything to do with Shamol’s murder. He stated that on June 2, he had ridden his bike to the Papedale East housing estate, where he had met two friends from his school at around 7 p.m. He told them that he had beaten someone up the day before after an army cadet meeting. He then cycled home, arriving at around 8 p.m. Two months later, Michael changed his statement. He claimed that two weeks before the murder, he had been practicing a maneuver in the woods because his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, Jamie Weatherhill, had abused her. He wanted to confront him, but Jamie didn’t show up. The police were certain that Michael Ross had killed Shamol Mahmood. Jamie Weatherhill had already left Kirkwall before Michael was seen in the woods. Furthermore, his alibi was not credible, as his friends could not confirm that they had spoken to him on June 2, 1994. Michael Ross was arrested on December 6, 1994. He couldn’t explain why his friends couldn’t clearly confirm that he had spoken to them on the night of the murder. The police let Michael Ross go because they didn’t have enough evidence against him. A confrontation with witnesses who had seen the shooter flee the restaurant after the crime yielded nothing. No one recognized Michael. Was it because no one believed a 15-year-old capable of such a cold-blooded murder? In March 1995, one of Michael’s childhood friends said that Michael had secretly taken his father’s gun to one of their meetings. James Spence, Eddy’s friend, also changed his statement. He confessed that he had given Eddy two boxes of the rare ammunition. One was sealed, the other open. Eddy had asked him to keep this a secret. However, the police were unable to find the open box during their search of the house. Constable Ross was suspended. The crime against Shamol divided Kirkwall. Ross’s supporters were called “The Mob on the Hill” and demonstrated loudly against the police’s witch hunt against Michael. In 1997, Eddy Ross was sentenced to four years in prison for perversion of justice. After two years, he was released and returned to the Orkney Islands, where he found work at a funeral home. Michael graduated from high school in Orkney and then joined the army. He signed up with his father’s old regiment, the Black Watch Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. He quickly became a non-commissioned officer and was deployed in the Iraq War in 2004. In 2005, he was honored for his outstanding actions in the Iraq War. Michael Ross was now married and the father of two daughters. His life seemed perfect. But in 2006, William Grant walked into the police station in Kirkwall. He handed over a letter. It stated that he had seen Michael Ross with a gun at the time of Shamol Mahmood’s murder. This finally enabled the police to charge Michael Ross. He had remained silent out of fear, as any statements he made would have led to threats and verbal abuse. In 2008, the trial of Michael Ross, who was referred to in the press as “The Schoolboy Assassin,” took place at the High Court in Glasgow. There was no forensic evidence and no murder weapon. However, witness statements weighed heavily against Michael Ross, as he had repeatedly made racist remarks such as “Black people should be shot.” After five long weeks, the 15-member jury found Michael Ross guilty of the murder of Shamol Mahmood. He was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison. When he heard the verdict, he ran away but was recaptured by the security guard. After his arrest, the police discovered that he had been preparing to escape in a car rented by Michael Ross, which was parked in the Tesco car park near the courthouse. He had even smuggled a gun from Kosovo to Scotland. Michael Ross planned another escape when he was transferred from Shotts Prison to Monklands Hospital in North Lanarkshire. Michael Ross also planned his escape in 2016 and 2018. Both attempts failed. To this day, Michael Ross maintains his innocence, and many supporters are campaigning on his behalf. There were doubts. The attacker’s height did not match. In addition, more than 20 witnesses described the shooter as muscular, between 5’9“ and 6’0” tall. However, Michael was only 5’7″ as an adult and had not been muscular as a teenager, but rather wiry. Another point was that Shamol’s diary disappeared during the investigation. There were a number of witnesses who said that Shamol had seemed “restless and worried” before his murder. Was he already fearing for his life? An appeal was rejected in 2012, as was the verdict on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice. In early June 2018, the case was taken over by human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar. The group “Justice for Michael Ross” raised £20,000 through crowdfunding to pay for this lawyer. The fact is that Michael Ross was convicted by 15 people who were certain that he had committed the cold-blooded murder of Shamol. Do you think he was the perpetrator?