Gun suspect 'made racist remark'

Shamsuddin Mahmood was shot dead in 1994

A woman who was in the Army Cadets with a man accused of murdering a waiter told police that he said "blacks should be shot", a court has heard.

Michael Ross, 29, denies murdering 26-year-old waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood at a restaurant in Orkney in 1994.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that in a police statement, Nicola Wylie said Mr Ross had said: "Blacks should be shot and guns put to their heads."

Mr Ross, of Inverness, was 15 at the time of the waiter's death.

But in evidence on Friday, Miss Wylie told Brian McConnachie QC, prosecuting, that she could not remember Mr Ross saying that.

She agreed with Mr McConnachie that she had told the police that and had also said to them that Mr Ross was "showing off to an audience" in the cadets when he said the words.

'It's wrong'

Mr McConnachie asked her: "The context was him showing off to an audience, was it not?", and she replied: I must have said that, but I don't recall him ever showing off."

Under cross-examination by Donald Findlay QC, defending, Miss Wylie admitted that she and all her friends in the cadets, including Mr Ross, used racist terms.

She said that she would not use words like that now because "it's wrong."

Mr Findlay asked: "Did you ever then or now see any sign in Michael Ross that he actually wanted to do harm to Asian people, black people?".

She replied: "No."

Special defence

Mr Ross is further charged with, while acting with others whose identities are unknown, committing a breach of the peace outside the Indian restaurant by shouting, swearing, uttering threats of violence and racist abuse.

The offence was allegedly committed between 3 May and 14 May, 1994.

Ross is also accused of wearing a face mask and crouching behind a wall and trees and committing a breach of the peace. The alleged offence is said to have happened on 19 May, 1994, in Papdale Woods, Kirkwall.

He denies all charges and has lodged a special defence of alibi claiming he was nowhere near the Indian restaurant or Kirkwall town centre, but was cycling in another part of Orkney.

The trial, before Lord Hardie, continues.