14 hours ago
Man convicted of 1994 Orkney restaurant murder is innocent, claims top lawyer
Leading criminal lawyer Aamer Anwar believes the case of a former soldier convicted of the murder 31 years ago of a restaurant waiter is a miscarriage of justice
Sheku Bayoh lawyer Aamer Anwar has called for the man convicted of the racially motivated murder of an Asian restaurant waiter to be set free.
The human rights campaigner believes that former Black Watch sergeant Michael Ross is the victim of a miscarriage of justice and wants his case referred back to the appeal courts and conviction and life sentence overturned.
Anwar says there is no evidence to show that he carried out a racially motivated killing. Michael Ross was found guilty in 2008 of shooting Bangladeshi waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood in the Mumutaz Indian Restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney, in 1994. At the time of the murder Ross was only 15.
After a trial at the High Court in Glasgow Ross was told he must serve 25 years before he can be considered for parole. Suspicion first fell on the teenager after his policeman father, a firearms specialist, told senior officers that he possessed the same ammunition as was used in the killing. Ross, who was an army cadet at the time, was identified as a man seen wearing a balaclava in woods around two weeks before the murder.
Twelve years later new evidence came from local man William Grant who told police he had seen Ross on the evening of the murder wearing a balaclava and handling a gun in toilets near the crime scene. Mr Grant also claimed he witnessed the youth shouting racial abuse outside the restaurant weeks before the murder.
A campaign - Justice for Michael Ross - has been launched on Orkney which Anwar's Glasgow firm is backing.
In an exclusive interview with Criminal Record - our new weekly podcast - the lawyer said: "We have represented Michael for a few years now and need new evidence to get the keys to open the cell door and for a miscarriage of justice application. "It strikes me as incredible that a 15 year old boy could walk into a restaurant with a balaclava on, walk directly up to an individual, shoot them at point blank range and then walk out and leave nothing of themselves."
Anwar says there are also concerns that 15-year old Ross was interviewed in 1994 about the murder by police without a lawyer present. He also described the evidence of Mr Grant as "fanciful". The lawyer is appealing to anyone with information on the 31 year old murder to come forward.
He added: "There must be people on the island who know much more than they knew at the time and with the passage of time will feel guilt or have a conscience and will one day give that information which means we have a miscarriage of justice application. "There were always questions over whether it was someone outside the island or a gangland execution."
Anwar hopes to present any new evidence to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission who have the power to refer convictions back to the appeal courts. The lawyer added: "There was evidence of people having turned up at the restaurant in the days before shouting abuse at Shamsuddin. "There is nothing to show that Michael Ross carried out a racially motivated murder."
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Following the murder of Shamsuddin Ross enlisted in the army and saw active combat in Iraq, becoming the sergeant of a sniper platoon.
Aamer Anwar is one of the country's most prominent criminal lawyers and has represented Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Surjit Singh Chhokar, the Lanarkshire waiter who was murdered in a racially motivated attack, and Sheku Bayoh, from Kirkcaldy, who died after being restrained by police officers in 2015.
He features in a new three part series of The Firm - about the workings of his legal practice - which began last night (Tuesday) on BBC Scotland.
The first episode shows him with Margaret Caldwell, the mother of murdered Glasgow sex worker, Emma Caldwell, as they successfully secure a public inquiry into police handling of her daughter's murder.
In 2024, Iain Packer was jailed for life with a minimum of 36 years for the murder of Emma in 2005. It emerged that Packer has been ignored as a suspect despite admitting to police that he was a client of Emma's and had previously taken her to the remote wooded spot where her body was found.
Anwar originally represented one of four Turkish men charged with Emma's murder and realised at that time they were not guilty. He added: "We need to know what went horribly wrong with the Emma Caldwell investigation. "There are still lessons to be learned. " Margaret Caldwell hopes to get to the truth but also wants a real and lasting legacy."
You can hear more from Aamer Anwar in our Criminal Record podcast where he talks about death threats, online abuse, and his most memorable campaigns and cases.
