{"id":198983,"date":"2026-09-07T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/198983\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:02:09","slug":"man-who-murdered-orkney-waiter-to-have-conviction-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/198983\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who murdered Orkney waiter to have conviction reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A former soldier serving a life sentence for the murder of a waiter in Orkney in 1994 is to have his conviction re-examined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Shamsuddin Mahmood, 26, was shot in the head at point-blank range as he served customers in an Indian restaurant in Kirkwall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Michael Ross &#8211; who was just 15 at the time &#8211; was convicted in 2008 after he joined the Army and became a sniper. He has always maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A previous bid by Ross to have the case reviewed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was <a data-ylk=\"slk:rejected in 2014;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-28638976?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Blink%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">rejected in 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The case will be looked at again and could ultimately be referred back to the courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The SCCRC said it was restricted by law in terms of the information it could disclose about the cases it reviews.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, it confirmed to BBC Scotland News that the commission had received an application from Ross which had now been accepted for a review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mahmood was shot and killed in front of diners, including young children, after a masked man walked into the Mumutaz restaurant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The death of the Bangladeshi national and university graduate shocked the island community and beyond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The prime suspect at the time was 15-year-old schoolboy Ross, but without sufficient evidence the case went cold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ross went on to become a sniper in the Black Watch and was decorated for his actions in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Then, 12 years after Mahmood was murdered, a new witness came forward.<\/p>\n<p>Escape bid<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It resulted in Ross being charged and tried at the High Court in Glasgow in June 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum sentence of 25 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But his conviction was overshadowed by an audacious escape attempt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As he was about to be led away Ross knocked over a security guard, and jumped out of the dock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He pulled open a side door but was eventually stopped in a court corridor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The following day, a hire car was discovered parked in a supermarket car park in Springburn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Inside was a cache of weapons including a loaded machine gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a grenade, and a hunting knife.<\/p>\n<p>More on this story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former soldier serving a life sentence for the murder of a waiter in Orkney in 1994 is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,62371,61935],"class_list":["post-198983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-mahmood","tag-ross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}