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Past Times

1994: The Brutal shooting of a Bangladeshi waiter in Orkney that prompted a 14-year mystery

Shamsuddin Mahmood was shot at point-blank range in front of horrified diners at the Mumutaz restaurant, sparking a 14 year quest to find his killer and bring him to justice.
Susy Macaulay
Image: DCT Design/Mhorvan Park
Image: DCT Design/Mhorvan Park

The front page news was especially dramatic on this day 30 years ago.

The main story was the death of 29 people in the Chinook helicopter crash in thick fog on the Mull of Kintyre.

And the second story sparked a mystery which would endure for a further 14 years, and still sparks debate today.

A Bangladeshi waiter, Shamsuddin Mahmood, was shot point-blank and killed by a masked gunman in Kirkwall’s Mumutaz Indian Tandoori restaurant.

It was the first murder in Orkney in 25 years.

An exterior view of the Mumutaz restaurant in Kirkwall, where Shamsuddin Mahmood worked.
The Mumutaz restaurant in Kirkwall, scene of the murder. Image: Northern Constabulary/PA Wire

Witnesses said a man wearing a mask walked in and shot the waiter in the face.

Police sealed off the area around the restaurant in Bridge Street that evening, and more officers were drafted in to the area later as the search for the gunman intensified.

Shot in face

A waitress at the restaurant who did not want to be named, said: “The man just burst in through the door. He had on a mask and just went up to the waiter, shot him in the face and ran off.

“We had about 14 customers in at the time. There was a bit of a panic as I went to phone for the police and an ambulance.”

She said the waiter had worked at the restaurant for a few months.

Staff at the Mumutaz Indian restaurant, Kirkwall, leaving the scene of shooting of waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood.
Staff at the Mumutaz Indian restaurant, Kirkwall, leaving the scene of shooting of waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood. Image: DCT/Ken Amer

Another witness said he saw a man acting suspiciously as he left a nearby public toilet before the shooting.

“I noticed him coming out of the Kiln Corner toilets and I thought it was strange because he had on a khaki-coloured top with the hood pulled right over and a balaclava underneath,” he said.

“He seemed to be all hunched up with his head pointing down. I thought it was odd, but I can’t believe this has happened.”

Detectives interviewed 8,500 people in connection with the case, but more than a decade passed without bringing anyone to justice for the crime…

Michael Ross on trial for Orkney shooting

A picture of Michael Ross laid over an image of the Mumutaz restaurant in Kirkwall.
Michael Ross fatally shot Bangladeshi waiter, Shamsuddin Mahmood at the Mumutaz Indian Tandoori restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney. Image: DCT Design.

Eventually, after a six week trial in 2008, Sergeant Michael Ross, aged 29 and serving as a sniper with the Black Watch, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.

He had carried out the murder, described in court as racially motivated and ‘savage, merciless and pointless’ when he was only 15.

There was sensation in Glasgow High Court when Ross tried to leap over the dock and escape when he was found guilty.

Weapons cache hidden in a car

It emerged later he had a weapons cache hidden in a hired car less than a mile from the court.

Ross, who was a top marksman at his local Army Cadet unit at the time, was questioned by detectives investigating the case and eventually admitted he had been in local woods wearing a balaclava two weeks before the killing.

But there was no forensic evidence to link him with the murder and witnesses failed to pick him out at an identity parade.

There were many twists and turns in the case.

Father jailed

Ross’s father, Constable Edmund Ross, the local firearms expert responsible for checking weapons on the island and searching homes for bullets, was jailed for four years at the High Court in Inverness in May 1997.

He was found guilty of deliberately hampering the murder investigation and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by not revealing that the 9mm bullet used in the killing was the same calibre, age and make as some given to him several years previously.

Headshot of Michael Ross.
Former Black Watch soldier Michael Ross fled the dock immediately after being convicted of the murder. Image: DCT

Ross was a suspect in 2005

Michael Ross had been confirmed as the main suspect by police in 2005 after he had been decorated for outstanding service with the Black Watch in Basra.

But it took a cold case review to bring him to justice over the Orkney killing, making it one of Scotland’s longest-running murder mysteries.

Over the years, Ross has made three attempts to break out of jail, and raised funds to hire a human rights lawyer to try and prove his innocence.

He remains behind bars, despite a campaign by friends to try and clear his name.

More from our On This Day series:

1978: Flag-waving crowds and Royal wisecracks as Queen Elizabeth opens the St Fergus gas terminal

1985: Sadness as Andy Stewart announces his ‘irrevocable’ decision to retire

 

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