Murder motive revealed in television investigation
(Story dated: Thursday, January 15, 2004)

The killing of Indian waiter Shamsudden Mahmood in Orkney ten years ago was a racist crime, according to the current head of CID at Northern Constabulary.

For the first time in the history of the unsolved case, Detective Superintendent Gordon Urquhart has revealed what he believes to be the motive.

“I think that we’ve identified through the inquiry process evidence that indicates quite strongly that this was a racist crime. It was carried out, the motive was racial, and I believe that that makes it a more abhorrent crime.”

The police chief was interviewed as part of a series of seven programmes for Grampian TV – Unsolved: Getting Away With Murder.

The events and the subsequent police investigation surrounding the death of the waiter and restaurant manager of the Mumutaz Indian restaurant in Kirkwall’s Bridge Street are the subject of the half-hour show tonight on Grampian and Scottish TV at 7.30pm.

Several possible motives were suggested in The Orcadian shortly after the killing – racism was one of them.

The programme also:

• talks to the victim’s brother at his home in Bangladesh about the effect the murder has had on him and the rest of the family
• reveals how waitress Marian Flaws, who witnessed the killing, said she first thought it was a joke.
• details the police report, which has been with the procurator fiscal for nine years, naming one man as the prime suspect.
• Shamsudden Mahmood, who was known affectionately as Shamol, was shot in the face at about 7.30pm on June 2, 1994 when a masked gunman walked into the restaurant. He died instantly.

In the programme waitress Marian Flaws recalls: “I heard the door opening behind me and I looked round and saw a man standing there with a hood up and mask on.

“I thought it was a joke to begin with. I saw the gun and thought, ‘he’s here to rob the restaurant’. He went right up to where Shamol was dishing out the meal. I heard a shot and then I think I saw him falling to the ground but I went out through the door and ran down the lane.”

The killing sent shockwaves throughout the islands – this was only the second murder in Orkney in a quarter of a century.

The victim’s brother, Bulbul Shafiuddin, talks of his stunned disbelief during the programme: “We are seven brothers and he was the youngest. He was young, sociable, very pleasant, no enemies. He graduated in economics. The family wanted him to become a lawyer. He wanted to become a lawyer. He was engaged to a young lady who was a student of medicine. She has now qualified.

“The sudden death is a great loss to the family. We still remember him and mourn his death. I don’t think he had any enemies. He was a pleasant person so there was no reason for anyone to kill him.”

Police launched a massive inquiry into the murder. House-to-house inquiries were carried out at every address in Kirkwall and inquiries expanded to include the Bangladeshi communities in London and Southampton.

In a bid to establish a motive, police explored whether the crime could have been drugs-related, part of an ethnic feud, a contract killing, a romantic liaison gone wrong. But much to detectives’ frustration, every avenue they went down led to a dead end.

From day one, however, police did have one tangible piece of evidence, the bullet casing that was ejected from the gun and recovered on the restaurant floor.

It was examined by local firearms expert Constable Eddie Ross. He told detectives it was a 9mm calibre bullet – one of a massive consignment made at the Kirkee arsenal in India.

Constable Ross was given the job of checking all 9mm weapons on the island and it was concluded that none of the weapons he examined was capable of firing the fatal bullet. And nowhere on the island could he find the same type of ammunition.

Police also pursued another line of inquiry. Two days after the shooting, a mother and daughter had come forward saying they had seen a man wearing clothes similar to that of the killer in Papdale Woods two weeks before the murder.

The young man had been “stalking” from tree to tree as if waiting for someone. The witnesses watched him through binoculars for around three quarters of an hour. Eventually he took off his mask and hooded top and walked away.

As the weeks went by, frustration among senior investigating officers grew. Then two months after the murder – early on the morning of August 12, 1994, police received information that turned the case on its head.

Constable Eddie Ross told Detective Inspector Angus Chisholm that he had a sealed box of the same bullets from the Kirkee arsenal, but said he couldn’t remember where he got them.

DI Chisholm, now retired, said: “I would have to say it astonished me because we had been looking for these for several weeks before. That was the focus of our inquiry.”

Constable Ross then revealed he got the bullets from James Spence, a former Royal Marine working in Orkney as a road sweeper. When interviewed Mr Spence was adamant he gave Constable Ross two boxes of bullets – one unopened from the Kirkee arsenal and another box of .22 calibre.

Less than a month later, the inquiry took another twist when one of the witnesses, who had seen the man in Papdale Woods, spotted him in Kirkwall.

Police checked CCTV footage and he was identified as Michael Ross, the 15-year-old son of Eddie Ross.

Michael was questioned in his father’s presence but denied it was him stalking in the woods. He also gave an alibi for the night of the murder, which police found didn’t stand up.

The youngster was questioned again on December 2 and admitted it was him in the woods, but stuck to his alibi for the night of the murder.

“He said he’d been waiting for someone who’d been in school with him. The story was that this chap had been beating up his girlfriend and he was going to see to him if he came out of school on that occasion. We discovered that the chap, although he did exist, had left the school several months previously,” DI Chisholm said.

Three days later, with suspicion growing about the Ross family, James Spence was questioned again.

DI Chisholm added: “He said that on three occasions Eddie had approached him and spoken to him and effectively asked him to tell lies. If the police did come and ask him about bullets he was to say there was only the one box.”

The following day police obtained a warrant to search the Ross home in St Ola. Michael Ross was detained and questioned about the murder and released without charge.

Three months later his father was suspended from duty.

He was later charged with hindering the murder investigation and jailed for four years at the High Court in Inverness.

During that trial, Michael Ross, who by then had joined the army, was named as a suspect. Under oath police officers revealed his alibi had been proven false, that he’d been spotted in Papdale Woods wearing clothes similar to the killer, and that he’d taken part in an identity parade.

Now married with a baby girl, Michael Ross is currently working as an army instructor in Yorkshire.

Through the Army, Grampian TV invited him to take part in the programme. A similar offer was made to his father, Eddie Ross. Both declined.

The case – described at the time as a thousand-piece jigsaw – remains open.