Woman 'was with Orkney murderer'

Ms Swanney was 12-years-old when Mr Mahmood was shot dead

A woman has come forward to claim that she was with convicted murderer Michael Ross on the night waiter Shamsudden Mahmood was shot dead in Orkney.

Last month, former army sniper Ross was jailed for life for the murder of Mr Mahmood in Kirkwall in 1994.

Two weeks ago a £100,000 reward was offered for information which might prove Ross's innocence.

However, 27-year-old Amelia Swanney claimed the reward had nothing to do with her coming forward now.

She said that, aged 12, she and friends were with Ross on a Kirkwall street at the time the shooting took place.

Another boy they knew later ran up to them to say someone had been killed.

I have never remembered it any differently and it has stayed in my head for that reason because it's a memorable night Amelia Swanney

In an interview with BBC Scotland, the environmental consultant - who is now based in Aberdeen - said she had on previous occasions tried to contact Ross's father and also left a message with his defence team during the trial.

She said: "If how I remember it is right, then there is no way Michael could have done it because he was in the gardens speaking to us at the time.

"I have always remembered it that way, you see. I have never remembered it any differently and it has stayed in my head for that reason because it's a memorable night."

Asked about the reward, she said: "I am not interested in that reward. If I was approached about it, if anything came of this and I was offered it, it's not for me. I wouldn't take money for something like this.

"I have known the Ross's for a big part of my life. I wouldn't profit out of what they've gone through."

Mr Mahmood, who was born in Bangladesh, was shot in full view of a room of diners by a masked gunman.

'Unprovoked murder'

Ross, from Inverness, became a Black Watch sniper and rose to the rank of sergeant.

He was found guilty of murder in June after a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Judge Lord Hardie told him last month that it had been a "vicious, evil, unprovoked murder".

Defence QC Donald Findlay revealed that Ross continued to protest his innocence and said "everything will be done at his instruction in an attempt to clear his name".

Ross's father - police officer Eddie Ross, who was called to the scene of the shooting - was previously jailed for four years for trying to defeat the ends of justice.

Ross, left, was jailed for the murder of Shamsudden Mahmood.

The charge was that he withheld information from investigating officers over ammunition he found in his own home. It resembled the cartridge used to kill the waiter.

He later said of his son's conviction: "No-one in our family believed he was responsible for what he was accused of."

Earlier this month an anonymous businessman placed an advert in local paper The Orcadian offering the reward for information about the murder.

This week the case was held up as an example of how long-running murder enquiries could be solved years after the crime.

Northern Constabulary's Peter MacPhee was speaking of his frustration that the killer of Nairn banker Alistair Wilson, 30, had still to be found four years after the father-of-two was shot.

But the senior officer said the jailing of Ross showed that, in time, a conviction could be brought.