Photofit sparks calls for inquiry into Orkney murder

Jun 22 2008 By David Taylor

A remarkable photofit of the Orkney murder suspect yesterday fuelled calls for an inquiry into why it took 14 years to bring prime suspect Michael Ross to justice.

The photofit was released just months after Ross, then 15, shot Indian waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood dead in 1994.

Its striking resemblance to the youth suggests detectives suspected Ross was the killer - because at that point not a single witness was able to describe the masked gunman's face.

It wasn't until 2006 that William Grant came forward to say that he saw Ross with a gun in a public toilet just minutes before 26-year-old Shamsuddin was blasted to death in Kirkwall's Mumataz restaurant.

Retired veteran Detective Superintendent Joe Jackson said: "It may be the case the investigating officers suspected Ross and from that drew up a photofit of him.

"What you are doing then is planting things in people's mind without having a proper eye-witness - which is out of order."

The identikit picture was released in October 1994.

Ross, 29, was finally convicted of murder on Friday.

But witness Grant's evidence was dismissed by judge Lord Hardie who told the jury that the circumstantial evidence alone could be enough to convict Ross.

Grant is one of three witnesses now facing a contempt of court charge over their evidence.

After the killing, racist Ross became a sniper with the Black Watch - and a war hero in Iraq.

His policeman father Eddie was jailed for four years in 1997 for hindering the murder probe.

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