6 days ago
Orkney Assassin: New Amazon show to revisit night teen killed waiter in shocking racist murder
A new documentary will revisit the shocking racist murder of a Bangladeshi waiter in Orkney in 1994 – and the 14-year long investigation to convict teenage killer Michael Ross.
Ross was just 15 years old when he shot waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood in a racially motivated killing.
BAFTA-winning film-maker Matt Pinder will tell the story of the murder in a new feature-length true crime show on Amazon Prime.
Pinder, known for his trilogy The Hunt for… has covered notorious Scottish killers like Peter Tobin and Bible John.
His latest film Orkney Assassin: Murder in the Isles follows the 14-year hunt that led to Ross's conviction.
In June of 1994, a masked gunman entered Mumutaz, a busy curry house in Kirkwall, and fatally shot 27-year-old Shamsuddin Mahmood.
Mahmood had only been on the Orkney Islands for six weeks before the fatal shooting took place.
The 26-year-old was working as a waiter and planning to return home to Bangladesh to marry his fiancée.
Michael Ross, then 15, was interviewed by police after two witnesses saw him in similar clothes to the killer weeks earlier.
Ross admitted to having a balaclava, which he had disposed of by dropping into the sea. His friends also denied Ross's alibi for the night of the shooting.
Police also discovered disturbing Nazi imagery and racist slogans scrawled in his school books.
Although he was interviewed as a teenager a few months after the murder, Ross was not charged at the time.
It took more than a decade for police to uncover the truth and bring Ross to trial at the High Court.
In the years following the killing, Michael Ross joined the British Army and became a highly trained sniper. He became a sergeant in the Black Watch and was praised for bravery following a 2005 Iraq tour.
In 2008, a handwritten tip from a witness William Grant, placed Ross at the scene on the night of the murder. His statement reignited the case and led to a new trial.
Other witnesses testified that Ross expressed racist views as a teen and borrowed his father's firearms.
Michael Ross was finally convicted of the murder Shamsuddin Mahmood in 2008 and handed a minimum sentence of 25 years.
After the guilty verdict was read, Ross vaulted from the dock and attacked courtroom security.
He escaped into a court corridor before being tackled and restrained by officers.
Investigators later discovered Ross had parked a getaway car loaded with weapons near the court building.
The convicted killer also attempted to escape HMP Shotts prison with a homemade ladder in 2022.
Ross and his family have maintained his innocence in the murder and believe he was wrongfully convicted of the crime.
The Orkney Assassin: Murder in the Isles will be available on Prime Video in the UK & Ireland on June 8.
Read more in our Michael Ross archives.
