Transcript: 15. The Schoolboy Assassin (The Shooting of Shamol Mahmood) | Scotland

This is The Evidence Locker.

Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones. 

It was as warm as a summer’s evening would get in Kirkwall, Orkney on June the 2nd 1994. The sun was still out, as it only sets around 10pm at this time of year, this far north.

Donald Glue, a local business man, and his family decided to go out to dinner at Mumutaz Indian Tandoori Restaurant. It was the only Indian restaurant in town and on that Thursday night, there were about 14 customers enjoying the flavours and spices of India.

Waiter, 26-year-old Bangladeshi national, Shamol Mahmood, clocked in for his second shift that summer. He had only been in the Orkney islands for six weeks and was excited to work at Mumutaz for a second season. 

Little did Shamol know, that this would be his last night alive.

As he was serving Donald Glue and his family their meal of curries, rice and naan bread, a masked gunman walked into the restaurant, pointed a pistol at Shamol’s head and shot him point blank. 

It would take more than a decade to solve this case, which police referred to as the thousand piece puzzle. And even after they arrested a man for this senseless crime, the residents of Orkney were still divided: was he really the killer? 

Who shot the kind-hearted and mild-mannered Shamol Mahmood on that fatal summer night of 1994?

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Shamsuddin Mahmood was born in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. He was the youngest of seven sons in family of 11 children.

At 24, Shamsuddin, or Shamol as he would introduce himself as, was still living in Bangladesh. He had finished his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics  from the National University of Bangladesh and had a serious girlfriend. His girlfriend was studying to be a doctor. The future seemed bright for the young couple.

But in 1992, after a fight with some friends about his girlfriend, he decided to go to the UK for a while. His eldest brother, Abul Shafuddin worked in London as a lawyer and took Shamol in. Shamol had aspirations to become a lawyer like his brother, but after a while he lost interest in his studies. 

During his time in the UK, he also stayed in Southampton for a while, working as a waiter. Then, in 1993 his travels took him north, all the way to the scenic Orkney Islands. He saw a waitering job advertised in a newspaper and jumped at the opportunity to go.

The Islands could not be more different to his native, densely populated, subtropical Bangladesh, but Shamol fell in love with the place. It’s rugged shoreline and windswept landscape really appealed to him. He spent nine months there in 1993, working as a waiter at Mumutaz Tandoori Indian restaurant. 

When winter rolled in and cruise ships and tourists took a break from visiting Orkney, Shamol decided to head back to London to stay with his brother. He vowed, however, that he would return to the Islands. It had captured his heart and he was drawn to the Orcadian way of life. 

He continued working as a waiter in England and stayed with Abul. Abul was under the impression that Shamol intended to return to Bangladesh to marry his girlfriend. So, when he learnt that Shamol had met a woman in Orkney, he was surprised. Abul didn’t know much about his brother’s new love interest, only that she was a local girl. In Abul’s polite way, he would later say that – from his understanding – Shamol’s new girlfriend was of ‘easy virtue’. He also believed that she owed Shamol some money, about 3000 Pounds.

In April 1994, it was clear that Shamol had no intention of pursuing his law degree any further. This led to a huge disagreement between the two brothers. They also argued about land inherited from their father.

Shamol had had enough. He was ready to return to Orkney. He called Mumutaz to ask if they had a summer job for him. Owner, Moina Miah, was delighted to hear from Shamol. He was good with customers and in the year before, Moina felt he could count on him as a trustworthy worker. Moina promised Shamol would have a job if he were to return to Orkney. 

Before long, Shamol was back in Kirkwall. Six weeks after his arrival, he worked his first shift for the summer at the restaurant. 

Orkney, or the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago of 70 islands in the Northern Isles of Scotland. Only 20 of these islands are populated, with 20 000 residents all together.

The only way to arrive or leave the islands is by plane or boat. The largest island is called ‘The Mainland’ and the biggest settlement, Kirkwall, has a population of about 9000 people. Kirkwall is also the administrative centre for the Orkney Islands.

Orkney has a long, industrious history and one is constantly reminded of Norse rule in the 9th century, with icons around the isles like St Olaf’s Church, the town of Stromnes and pubs with names like Torvhaug. 

Since the 15th century, Orkney has been under Scottish rule. However, Orkney has its own sense of pride and identity. It’s not uncommon for locals to see themselves as Orcadians first and Scots second. They speak a dialect that distinguishes them from their Scottish neighbours.

Native Orcadians are proud about their heritage and for centuries they have referred to non-native residents as ‘ferry-loopers.’

With an insular mindset, locals know each other and more often than not – know each other’s business. 

Crime is pretty much non-existent on the Mainland. A car theft would cause a massive uproar and most definitely make headlines in the local newspaper, The Orcadian. It’s not likely that you would get away with a crime in a small town, like Kirkwall, where everybody knows everybody. 

The last murder in Kirkwall, before the Mumutaz restaurant incident, was in 1969. The man who was shot and killed was a 74-year-old crofter called Andrew Bruce. His murderer was arrested before breakfast the next day.

Detective superintendent George Gough was certain the shooting of Shamol Mahmood would be solved quickly. He said what was going through his mind as he was travelling from Inverness in Scotland to start investigation on the case:

"Orkney has a village mentality; this is a village crime. People there say you can't pee in the dark without someone seeing you. We'll get something soon."

But they didn’t. 

After thousands of interviews, with people local to the area as well as visitors from as far abroad as Japan and Australia, they had no concrete evidence. 

On the night of June 2nd 1994, Shamol Mahmood was working his second shift for the summer at Mumutaz Tandoori restaurant. Orkney doesn’t have a big Asian community, in fact, Mumutaz was the only curry house on the Mainland. It was a popular place with local families and tourists alike.

That Thursday night was rather busy. At 7pm, there were already about 14 customers. The restaurant was full of families and friends out for a night on the town. Smells of fragrant curries came from the kitchen while diners chatted and laughed.

At about 7:15pm Shamol’s co-worker, Marion Flaws, was greeting customers at the door then turned to go to the bar to fetch some menu’s. She heard a commotion and saw a man wearing a balaclava entering the restaurant. When she saw him, she thought it was a joke, but when she saw that he had a gun, she assumed he was there to rob the restaurant.

Shamol Mahmood was standing at a table, serving Donald Glue and his family their meal. It  was a large table, Donald’s wife, their children and in-laws were all there. 

The masked man headed straight for the waiter, lifted the gun and shot him in the head, as they looked on in shock. Shamol fell to the ground and died almost instantly. 

Customers thought the man walking in, wearing a black balaclava was dressed up for fun, as some kind of joke, but once the gunshot was fired and the unmistakable smell of gunpowder lingered, they realised this was no prank.

After the shot rang out, Marion Flaws ran out of the door, into the street. Minutes later she saw the assailant come out of the restaurant. He hesitated for a minute, considered if he should go to the left or the right, then ran away. Marion saw him flee down the narrow lane behind the restaurant.

Donald Glue and his brother in law chased after the gunman for a while, but fearing for their own lives, gave up the chase.

This was a cold and callous murder. The perpetrator had purpose and confidence. In fact, the immediate assumption was that he was a hitman. It seemed like a professional assassination. 

Witnesses were dumbfounded by what they had seen. Police interviewed all the witnesses, but there were conflicting statements in describing the gunman. The basic information they could agree on was that the man wore a balaclava and a dark-coloured hooded jumper – the hood was pulled up. The man’s height was said to be 5ft 10 to 6ft (that’s between 1.77 and 1.82 metres) by some witnesses, while others thought he was shorter. A couple of restaurant customers mentioned that he was hunched, or that he had a distinctive stoop, like a body builder.

A local man came forward and said that he saw a burly man, in the alley leading to Mumutaz restaurant, two hours before the murder. The man walked out in front of him. He looked like a bodybuilder: he was muscular and he walked with his arms out from his sides. He was in his late twenties and about 6ft tall. The man turned to stare at the witness for a while. The witness felt threatened and uncomfortable. 

Another witness saw a man wearing a hooded top, loitering outside a public restroom on Junction Road, across the way from Mumutaz restaurant around 7pm, minutes before the shooting. It was one of the hottest evenings of the year, so seeing the man wearing a long sleeved hooded jumper looked out of place.

Witnesses also saw a man in black clothes running away from the scene. By this time the balaclava was off and they could see the man had nutty brown hair. The last sighting of the gunman was near Kirkwall pier.

Police would eventually search the sewers in Kirkwall. Along parts of the sewer a grown man would be able to walk or run upright. It would be the ideal escape route to the Papdale woods, a mile south east of the town centre. But after extensive searches were completed, they ruled out the possibility that the gunman went this way.

Kirkwall police scrambled to start investigation into Orkney’s first murder in 25 years. Violent crime was extremely uncommon on the island. Local police were simply not equipped to deal with a murder investigation. So, they contacted their colleagues in Inverness for assistance.

The task team from Inverness told Kirkwall police to preserve the scene and wait for their arrival. The investigators travelled by road, 150 miles (that’s 240 kilometres) to Gill’s Bay then took a 45-minute ferry ride. That’s the nature of policing in the islands. They travelled through the night of June the 2nd and arrived in Orkney in the early hours of the following morning.

They were briefed about the incident. Shamol was shot in left eye, through his glasses. The bullet went through his head and lodged in the wall behind him. A single bullet casing fell on the carpet. Everything indicated that this was a targeted contract killing. 

The million dollar question, however, was: Why? Shamol seemed nice enough, always kind and friendly. 

Did he perhaps have a dark side? Could he have been in a gang? 

Police found it curious that the over-qualified waiter seemed to always have had some money to spare. He lent over 3000 Pounds to his brother, who was a lawyer, so he could renovate his home. Then there was the rumoured girlfriend in Orkney who also borrowed money from him.

Perhaps the girlfriend was the key – did she have a jealous husband or another boyfriend? However, nothing indicated that Shamol had crossed a line, nobody had any bad feelings toward him. Definitely nothing that would cause a brutal public execution.

Police had to look at a broader picture. Did something happen while Shamol lived in London or Southampton that caught up with him in Kirkwall? 

After hours of interviews and investigation, there was nothing that indicated that Shamol Mahmood had a dark side. He was an innocent victim. Nothing in Shamol’s life suggested that he had trouble coming his way. But without a motive, chances of finding the person responsible for his death, would be near impossible.

That’s when the theory emerged that it could possibly have been a race hate crime. Did his murder have anything to do with the fact that Shamol was Bangladeshi? Fearing that the gunman had a problem with people of colour, the Mumutaz’s owner, Moina Miah, went into hiding under police guard with his wife and children. 

“We are really scared in case whoever did this comes after us as well.”

The night before the murder, there was an incident outside Mumutaz which could have been a crucial clue in solving Shamol’s murder. Witnesses saw two or three men outside the restaurant, around 8:30pm, having an argument with Shamol. The men had Scottish rather than Orcadian accents. Witnesses in the restaurant heard one of the men say: 

“I will shoot you”. 

This sighting remains a mystery to this day. Police were never able to track down any of the men who confronted Shamol on the night before his murder.

The Mainland was sealed off for three days: everybody arriving or leaving by boat, ferry or plane was checked. They had to ask everyone in Kirkwall for information too, but they were concerned that the perpetrator would leave the island as Kirkwall had an influx of tourists in summer. They went to every guest house – not only in Kirkwall, but on the whole island. Every single house was visited.

Extra police were brought in and they searched the perimeter of the island: all the bays and inlets. Orkney Coast Guard and fishermen were questioned at length about the movements of boats on that Thursday night. Nothing out of the ordinary was reported. 

A cold blooded killer was still at large. Orcadians feared that he would strike again. In a place where no one locked their doors, people changed their habits and became more cautious. A dark shadow of suspicion fell over the whole community. What if the assailant was one of their own?

The only concrete evidence in the case was the bullet and its casing found at the murder scene. Kirkwall police were fortunate to have a well-informed firearms expert, constable Edmund Ross. He was tasked with identifying the bullet. 

Edmund Ross (or Eddy) grew up in Orkney and was an ex-army sniper and weapons expert. He was a former Royal Green Jacket and Special Branch officer who at some point in his career protected Prince Charles and Princess Diana. 

After Eddy left the army, he joined the police force and returned to his native Orkney. Everybody knew Eddy had a keen interest in firearms. He also owned quite a few himself, which he kept at his home at St Ola, near Kirkwall. His teenage sons shared their dad’s passion and they often went target shooting together.

A part of Eddy’s job as a police officer was to confiscate illegal firearms and destroy them. This would be done by sawing the weapons into smaller pieces and throwing the parts into the sea. 

After Shamol Mahmood’s murder, Eddy and other officers confiscated all weapons on the Mainland. Eddy carried out tests, by firing the weapons and comparing the marks of the bullets and casings to the bullet and casing found at the murder scene. But they could not find a match. 

In researching the origin of the bullet, Eddy Ross found that the 9mil bullet was made in India, at the Kirkee Arsenal. This type of bullet was manufactured in 1972 and purchased by the British Army throughout the 1970s. One part in a batch of four million of these bullets, was of inferior quality. The army decided to dump most of it in the ocean. It was quite unusual that a bullet from this exact consignment was still in circulation, in a remote place like Orkney.

On August 12th, two months after the shooting, Constable Eddy Ross was about to head home after working a night shift. Detective Inspector Chisholm asked him for an address for the Kirkee arsenal in India, as Eddy was the firearms expert in the team. The chances were that he had a directory of arsenals at home. 

But there was something else constable Ross had to get off his chest that morning. He admitted that at his home, he had a box of bullets, from the Kirkee Arsenal, matching the batch number of the bullet that killed Shamol Mahmood. 

When Eddy was asked why he had these bullets in his possession, he said that he could not remember. He thought that maybe he picked them up at a shooting centre in Scotland. Or perhaps that a local man in Orkney had given it to him. He said he wanted to speak to the man first before implicating him. 

Detective Inspector Chisholm was taken aback at how the information came out: they had been looking for matching bullets since the start of the investigation. Why did Ross wait so long to come forward?

Eddy Ross claimed that, as a gun enthusiast who owned 11 firearms, he had loads of ammunition at his house. Investigating all the guns on the island had him distracted and only when he remembered about the bullets in his possession, did he come forward. Constable Ross handed over the Kirkee-Arsenal ammunition. It was still in a sealed box and the full amount of 35 bullets were inside.

Soon after he handed in the bullets, Eddy Ross admitted he was given the bullets by an old school friend, James Spence, a retired Royal Navy officer, who had taken the bullets when he left service. 

James Spence was interviewed two days later. Spence confirmed that he had taken the ammunition with him when he had left the military in 1980. He had given it to Eddy Ross some years later, because he knew he was a gun enthusiast and thought he might have had use for it. Spence said that he had given Eddy two boxes of ammunition: the bullets from the Kirkee Arsenal and another box of .22 bullets.

As the box Eddy Ross had in his possession was sealed with all the bullets still there, Eddy could not possibly have had anything to do with Shamol’s death. Although it caused quite a stir in the police force, this wasn’t the break in the case they were looking for. 

Then two witnesses came forward, a mother and daughter. They said that they saw a young man wearing a balaclava and a dark coloured hooded jumper, behaving strangely in Papdale Woods two weeks before the shooting. 

Papdale Woods are located between the local secondary school and the school hostel, where pupils from the isles stayed during the week.

According to the mother and daughter, the young man ran around, mimicking (what could best be described as) commando manoeuvres. He would crouch behind a wall, then jump up and run to hide behind a tree. This went on for more than half an hour. Eventually, he took his balaclava off, and they saw his face for a brief moment. They also saw that he was wearing a white sweatshirt with a pattern on the hem underneath his hoodie.

About seven other secondary school kids also testified that they saw this man in the woods and thought it was odd, but didn’t feel it was necessary to report it at the time. He didn’t seem to be stalking them or hurting anyone, in fact he was looking away from them.

Police were determined to find out who this person was. They appealed to the public for help, asking more witnesses to come forward.

About three months after seeing the man in the Papdale Woods, the same mother and daughter were having coffee at a café in Kirkwall. They saw a young man come out of a bakery and were convinced that he was the same person they saw in the woods before. 

Police checked the bakery’s CCTV security footage and the mother and daughter confirmed that the customer in the bakery at 1pm on September 8th was the same man they saw in the Papdale Woods, in May of that year. 

It wasn’t hard to identify the young man. It turns out, it was Michael Ross – constable Eddy Ross’ 15-year-old son.

Michael attended the local secondary school and his main ambition in life was to become a soldier like his father once was. They were a military family. Michael and his younger brother were members of the local Army Cadets and regularly took part in shooting exercises.

Police felt it was time that they searched the Ross home – specifically Michael’s room. The room was a typical 90’s teenage boy’s room, with posters of Megadeath and Iron Maiden on his walls. 

More concerning was the black balaclava that was similar to the one witnesses saw Shamol’s assassin wear: with holes for his eyes and mouth. There was also a deactivated 9mil sub machine gun hanging on the wall. The piece was a gift that Eddy Ross had given his son. 

There was a notebook in Michael’s room with a doodle of two chevrons for corporal and the name ‘Ross’ on the first page. The ‘o’ in ‘Ross’ had a swastika drawn inside it and the two letters ‘s’ in his surname were written like the Nazi SS – resembling thunderbolts.

On another page was a picture of the Scottish flag with the words “Death to the English” and further down the page the words “Death cures all.”

All eyes were on Michael Ross as the prime suspect in the murder case that had baffled investigators. Was he a racist skinhead who killed Shamol Mahmood, simply because he wasn’t white?

Michael Ross was taken in for questioning on September 24th, almost four months after the killing. The 15-year-old denied committing the murder. He said his dad had bought a couple of balaclavas and given to him. Michael used the one police found in his room when he went away on exercise events with the Cadets. He denied ever wearing his balaclava in the woods. 

In his statement to police, he says that on the night of June 2nd he cycled from his home to the Papdale East housing estate. Around 7pm he had met two friends from school and they had a short conversation. He had told them that he had punched someone after a session at the Army Cadets the previous day. From there he cycled back home and arrived at 8pm. As he was cycling home he could hear the sound of emergency vehicle sirens.

Michael Ross admitted that he had fired his dad’s 9mm at the shooting range before, but he did not own any firearms himself.

Police were uneasy about this young man, but they did not have enough evidence to charge him with murder.

Months went by, then, in December of the year that Shamol was killed, Michael Ross, with his dad Eddy by his side, went into police headquarters in Kirkwall, to change his previous statement. 

Michael admitted that it WAS him in the woods acting strangely, two weeks before the Mumutaz shooting. He explained that he was waiting for another boy from school, called Jamie Weatherill, who had been dating Michael’s ex-girlfriend. Jamie had been physically abusive towards the girl, so Michael decided to wait for him in the woods to give him a fright. He had no weapons on him and the plan was to pin him up against a tree and threaten him, at most punch him. He had hoped that it would stop Jamie from hurting the girl again. But the other boy did not show up, so Michael changed out of his balaclava and hoodie in the woods and went back to his grandmother’s house where he had left his bicycle. 

Michael Ross also said that he had taken the same balaclava to school sometime after the Mumutaz shooting. He took it to school to show it to a friend. His mom found it in his school bag the same afternoon and when his dad, constable Eddy Ross heard about it, he was very upset. 

Michael understood why his dad was so mad at him. It wasn’t the time to take matters like this lightly. After Shamol’s murder, some other Cadets were mucking about around town, wearing their balaclavas, using torches as pretend-guns and frightening people by jumping out of alley ways, shouting BOOM!

Michael took the balaclava to Scapa, not far from his home in Saint Ola, put a stone in it and threw it into the water. 

Police were certain that Michael Ross was the masked man who had killed Bangladeshi waiter, Shamol Mahmood. They set out to verify his statements and found that everything didn’t quite add up.

Firstly, the story about him behaving strangely in Papdale Wood,. He said he was waiting for his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. While there was a young man by the name of Jamie Weatherill in the same year as Michael Ross, he had left the area several months before Michael was seen in the woods. 

Then there was Michael’s alibi for the night of the shooting. He said that he had cycled around Papdale East and talked to two friends, but when questioned, the friends could not exactly confirm talking to him on Thursday the 2nd of June.

On December 6th 1994, while at school, 16-year-old Michael Ross was detained in connection with the murder. He could not explain why his friends could not confirm that they had spoken to him in Papdale East at the time of Shamol’s murder. He suggested that police asked his friend’s brother who might have seen him at the time. He added that his friend was cutting the grass at a house that wasn’t his home. If Michael Ross had not been there, how would he know this?

Again, police didn’t have enough to charge the teen, so he remained free. After questioning he was allowed to go home. But the pressure was on and they were more certain of Michael’s guilt than ever.

A month later, Michael Ross was asked to stand in a line-up. Three witnesses who saw the gunman flee from Mumutaz restaurant moments after the murder, were asked if they could identify the man. None of the three picked Michael from the line-up, as they all felt the suspect was older, between 25-30 years old.

In March 1995, a month after the line-up, one of Michael’s childhood friends came forward and said that she was out with him two years before. They were walking along the shore and when she wanted to go onto the beach, Michael didn’t want to join her. He told her that he had taken one of his dad’s pistols, as his dad was away and wouldn’t notice. He didn’t want to walk on the sand and risk the gun getting dirty. 

In the meantime, after the controversial bullet-incident, things were tense at the Ross home. Three months after Eddy Ross had handed in the Kirkee-bullets that had matched the bullet used in the Mumutaz murder, his friend James Spence went to police and changed his statement. 

Spence said that he had given Eddy three boxes of bullets in total. One box of .22 bullets, and not one, but TWO boxes of the Kirkee-arsenal bullets. The one box was sealed and the other box was not. Spence was not sure how many bullets were in the second box.

When asked why he initially said Eddy only had ONE box, Spence claimed that Eddy Ross asked him to say that. Spence asked Eddy Ross if he still had the bullets he had given him. Ross allegedly said: only the one box. 

Eddy Ross was adamant that he only ever took two boxes of bullets from Spence, but Spence insisted there was a third. The day after the interview with James Spence, police searched the Ross home again, but couldn’t find the open box of Kirkee ammunition. 

Three months later constable Eddy Ross was suspended from the police force.

Neighbours and friends of the Ross-family were outraged. They had no doubt that both Eddy and Michael were innocent: why would Eddy tell investigators about the bullets if it could implicate him in the murder, even worse: implicate his own son?

Ross supporters were called ‘The Mob on the Hill’. They were very vocal about the fact that police were on a witch hunt and had apparently stopped exploring any other avenues in the case. It was unimaginable to think that a 15-year-old-boy, who was always seen riding his red Raleigh bicycle around the island, could be capable of cold blooded murder. Even more so, if he did in fact commit the murder, as a young boy – how would he have been able to keep his composure after the event? He never broke down or changed his behaviour. Friends also knew the Ross family loved their firearms, but they were a military family, nobody thought their love of guns to be excessive or strange.

Then in 1997, Eddy Ross was charged with ‘Perverting the Course of Justice’. He faced permanent suspension and jail time. Eddy Ross’ trial was held at the imposing Inverness Castle. At trial, Eddy’s son Michael was named as the prime suspect in Shamol Mahmood’s murder. The jury didn’t take long to find Eddy guilty and he was sentenced to four years in prison. 

After two years, he was released, returned to Orkney and found a job as an undertaker. 

Michael Ross remained free and finished high school in Orkney. As soon as he could, he applied to join the army and signed on with his dad Eddy’s old regiment, the ‘Black Watch Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.’

Michael quickly rose to the rank of sergeant and proved to be an excellent marksman. He was taken in as a military combat sniper. 

In his role as a soldier, he once guarded the queen at Balmoral during her summer break on Royal Deeside. 

When he served in Iraq in 2004, he was the vehicle commander with the Black Watch detachment. While driving in convoy one day, their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. Michael put himself in danger, administering first aid before organising evacuation. Three men in his battalion were killed that day. For his acts of bravery, he earned commendations. Once a murder suspect, he was now a war hero.

At the age of 26, Michael Ross was excelling in the military. He had a wife and two daughters and they were living in Inverness. The shadow of suspicion of murder did not seem to follow him anymore. 

But the Mumutaz case was far from over. In 2006, a local man walked into Kirkwall Police Station and handed in an anonymous letter. The letter said:

“This is a true letter. I promise that I saw the person who killed the Indian waiter. I saw his face in full and the hand gun. It was in the toilets at Kiln Corner. I have lived long enough with the guilt of not coming forward. The person was about 15+ years approximately - white, and had a balaclava on his head but still not turned down, colour was either dark blue or black, dark clothing. He came out of a cubicle but went back in quick when he saw me. I looked over and saw his face in full. The hand gun was natural polished metal or silver and like a big Beretta. This may sound stupid but the way he held a hand gun looked like he had handled a firearm before. I just don’t know what to do! Worried sick witness!”

The Kiln Corner public toilets were across the road from Mumutaz restaurant. It didn’t take long to identify the man who had written the letter. The police administration clerk who received the letter, recognised the man who brought it in. The man was William Grant, a local man who said he had been out, drinking at a pub on Junction Road on the night of June 2nd. He came out and admitted that the boy he saw that night was Michael Ross.

In addition to his statement about seeing Michael Ross with a balaclava and handgun on the night of the murder, Willie Grant also recalled seeing Michael and a friend outside of Mumutaz restaurant, sometime in May, shouting racist abuse and threats. No other witnesses or restaurant staff could corroborate this story, however. 

Police wondered why Willie Grant waited 12 years to come forward. He said he didn’t want to be fingered as the man who blew the whistle. With many local people supporting the Ross family, they would have ostracised him.

Police felt they finally had enough evidence to charge Michael Ross with the murder of Shamol Mahmood. His trial was held in Glasgow’s High Court in 2008. By this time, the media had dubbed him “The Schoolboy Assassin.”

Although there was no forensic evidence and no murder weapon in this case, things did not look good for Michael Ross.

Witnesses came out of the woodworks, remembering how Michael used to make racist remarks. He said that all immigrants should be killed. One witness testified that 15-year-old Michael Ross had said:

“Blacks should be shot and have a gun put to their head”

Soldiers who only knew Michael as a grown man struggled to believe that he was a racist. While serving in the army, he had black friends. In fact, when a fellow soldier, who was black, died, Ross openly wept.

Forensic psychologist, testifying for the defence stated:

“At the time of the murder Mr Ross was an immature 15 year-old who had no apparent personal link to the victim. Witnesses describe the murderer as 'deliberate', 'unemotional', 'experienced', 'like a professional', and there is evidence from their accounts that this was not a random act of racial aggravation but an organised and targeted act of violence against a specific person. A 15 year-old boy is unlikely to fit the witnesses' description unless he is exceptionally psychopathic and has experience of executing human beings. Unless Mr Ross is an adept actor and considerably more able intellectually than his background history suggests, there is no evidence from the material I have been provided with, and my interview with him, to suggest that he fits this profile."

In 2008, the jury found Michael Ross guilty and he was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. 

But this experienced soldier had no intention of going to jail. As soon as the verdict was delivered, he jumped over the dock and made a run for it. Court guards managed to apprehend him near the exit. A guard tackled him and he was taken into custody.

After he was imprisoned, police discovered a car, rented by Michael Ross, that was parked in a Tesco carpark, not far from the court building. In the car was evidence that he was well prepared to escape. They found camouflage gear, weapons and hand grenades, a tent and camping equipment, as well as some money. His plan was to, in the event of him being found guilty, run to his car and go off-grid. Years of military escape and evasion tactics had taught him a thing or two. He was heading for the hills.

What concerned authorities was the fact that there were weapons and ammunition. If captured, Michael Ross was prepared to go down in a hail of gunfire.

One of the weapons found in his car was smuggled into Scotland. Ross admitted that he had brought it from Kosovo, hidden in the back of a television set. 

Michael’s dad, Eddy Ross denies knowing anything of Michael’s plan to escape. Both Michael and Eddie still maintain their innocence with regards to the Shamol Mahmood case. Michael Ross tried to have his conviction overturned – he claimed a miscarriage of justice. His appeal was rejected by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review. He received a final refusal to refer his case back to Court of Appeal in 2015.

Shortly after this, while in prison transit from Shotts prison to Monklands hospital in North Lanarkshire, Michael reportedly try to escape, but he did not succeed. The van was brought to a halt and guards managed to regain control of their prisoner.

In 2016, he was planning another escape. In his time in prison, he was known to be a model prisoner. He earned the privilege of working in the tool shop, using power tools. Over time, Michael had made a replica of an angle grinder – from wood. It was done so perfectly, he even painted a tiny ‘Bosch’ label on. He replaced the actual grinder with the replica so nobody would notice it was missing. Then he took the real power tool to his cell, hoping that could cut through his cell bars. But when a weekly audit was done, guards discovered the wooden angle grinder and rounded up all prisoners who had been working in the workshop. Michael Ross freely admitted that he was the one they were looking for and told them where they would be able to find the real tool.

As recent as July of 2018, he tried another desperate escape. He tried to scale a big fence and simply run away. But the plan was too ambitious and it didn’t take Shotts prison guards to pull him down from the fence.

There are many supporters in Orkney who are actively campaigning Michael’s release from prison. 

There are two main points of contention: firstly the issue of the assailant’s height. There were more than 20 witnesses on the night of the killing. Most of them felt that the gunman was a muscular man of about 5ft 8 to 6ft tall. Michael Ross, as a grown man is only 5ft 7, at 15-years of age he was perhaps even slightly shorter than that. In fact, photos taken of him at 16, show Michael to be shorter than his younger brother.

The other issue is that of Shamol’s background. Supporters of Michael discovered that Shamol’s journal was misplaced in the course of the investigation. The journal reportedly had information that alluded to the fact that Shamol feared for his own safety. There were a number of witnesses who told police early on in the investigation that Shamol seemed ‘uneasy and preoccupied’ in the weeks leading up to his murder.

Earlier this year, June 2018, top human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar decided to take on Michael Ross’ case as a wrongful conviction. The ‘Justice for Michael Ross’ group (or J4MR) raised 20,000 Pounds through crowdfunding to pay this high profile solicitor.

Although this murder occurred more than 20 years ago, this case still divides local opinion. Those who know the Ross family, stand firmly behind Michael and believe in his innocence. ‘The Mob on the Hill’ is as active as ever in their pursuit to have Michael Ross acquitted. 

Others believe that the right man was convicted of the murder, but may not be too vocal about it around Saint Ola in Orkney. Police and Prosecution too, feel satisfied that the right man is behind bars, but Michael Ross vows to never give up the fight to clear his name. 

Shamol Mahmood’s family still miss their kind-hearted brother and son, and the doubts in this case doesn’t make losing him any easier.

If you’d like to learn more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes. 

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