Iraq war hero convicted for killing of Bangladeshi in UK after 14 yrs

London, June 21: Sergeant Michael Ross, a hero of the Iraq war, was convicted by a jury in Glasgow High Court for murdering a Bangladeshi waiter by shooting him in the head in front of diners at a restaurant in the Orkneys, in 1994.

His colleagues still remember his daredevil act of administering first aid before organising the evacuation of his wounded men when a roadside bomb in Iraq hit his armoured vehicle in 2004.

When a black soldier under his command died, he wept openly.

He was just 15 when he committed the crime with his face covered with a balaclava or ski mask.

Ross tried to escape from the court on Friday moments after his conviction but police foiled the attempt, The Independent reported.

With the conviction, 14-year old case of Shamsuddin Mahmood's murder has come to an end. The 26 year old met with the incident at the Mumtaz restaurant in Kirkwall, the main town of the Orkney Islands with a population of 8,500. The murder was the first on the Orkneys for 25 years.

A six-week trial revealed that Ross had been a gun-obsessed teenager who doodled Nazi imagery on a notebook and told a comrade in the Army cadets: "Blacks should be shot."

He was arrested in May last year but claimed that he was in another part of Kirkwall when the killing took place on the evening of 2 June 1994.

Ross who was a sniper with the Black Watch, now part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland was convicted by a majority verdict and would be sentenced on 11 July.

Abul Shafuddin, Mahmood's brother was satisfied with the verdict and said that justice had been done. He thanked those who worked to bring the accused to trial.

ANI