A Dark City

Kriss Donald

• Bryan • Episode 3

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What if a single tragic event could expose the racial and societal tensions simmering beneath the surface of a city? Join us as we unravel the harrowing story of 15-year-old Kriss Donald, whose senseless murder in Glasgow in 2004 became a landmark case in Scotland's legal history. Discover how Detective Superintendent Elliot McKenzie faced numerous obstacles—from inadequate media coverage to diplomatic hurdles with Pakistan—in his relentless quest to bring the five men responsible to justice. This chilling narrative not only highlights the disturbing realities of racially motivated violence but also serves as a stark reminder of the societal fractures that can be laid bare by such tragedies.

Amidst the darkness, stories of resilience and resistance emerge, most notably from Kriss's mother, Angela Donald, who courageously fights against the racial exploitation of her son's death. We also delve into the controversial actions of high-profile individuals like Elon Musk, accused of using Chris's murder to fuel racial discord. Through the lens of public figures like former First Minister Hamza Yousaf and Mohamed Sarwar, who played a vital role in achieving justice, we examine the complex interplay of media influence, political accusations, and community cohesion. This episode seeks to provoke a deeper reflection on the broader implications for societal harmony and the power dynamics at play in such high-profile cases.

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Welcome to A Dark City, the podcast that delves into the shadowy underbelly of Glasgow, a city with a storied past and a reputation for resilience. Here we uncover the chilling true stories of serious crimes that have left their mark on the city's history, from notorious gangland wars to unsolved mysteries. Join us as we explore the darker side of Glasgow and the people whose lives were forever changed by its crimes. The End, Kriss Donald, was a 15-year-old white Scottish teenager who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of five men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime. Danish Zahid, imran Shahid, zeeshan Shahid and Mohamed Faisal Mustaq were later found guilty of racially motivated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. A fifth man, zahid Mohamed, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assault and lying to police and was sentenced to five years in prison. He later went on to testify against the other four at their trials. The case featured the first ever conviction for racially motivated murder in Scotland. On 15 March 2004, donald was abducted from Kenmure Street in the Pollock Shields area of Glasgow by five men associated with a local British Pakistani gang led by Imran Shahid. The kidnapping was ostensibly revenge for an attack on Shahid at a nightclub in Glasgow City Centre the night before by a local white gang, and Donald was chosen as an example of a white boy from the McCulloch Street area. Despite having no involvement in the nightclub attack or in any gang activity, donald was taken on a 200-mile journey to Dundee and back, while his kidnappers made phone calls looking for a house to take him to. Having no success at this, they returned to Glasgow and took him to the Clyde Walkway near Celtic Football Club's training ground. There they held his arms, ascertained due to an absence of defensive wounds, and stabbed him multiple times. Of defensive wounds and stabbed him multiple times, he sustained internal injuries to three arteries, one of his lungs, his liver and a kidney. He was doused in petrol and set on fire as he bled to death.

Speaker 1:

Initially, two men were arrested in connection with the crime. One man, danish Zahid, was found guilty of Kriss Donald's murder on 18 November 2004 and was the first person to be convicted of racially motivated murder in Scotland. Another man, zahid Mohamed, admitted involvement in the abduction of Donald and lying to police during their investigation and was imprisoned for five years. He was released after serving half of his sentence and returned to court to give evidence against three subsequent defendants. Three suspects were arrested in Pakistan in July 2005 and extradited to the UK in October 2005,.

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Following the intervention of Mohamed Sarwar, the Member of Parliament MP for Glasgow Central, the Pakistani police had to engage in a long struggle to capture two of the escapees. There is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and Britain, but the Pakistani authorities agreed to extradite the suspects. There were numerous diplomatic complications around the case, including apparent divergences between government activities and those of ambassadorial officials. Government figures were at times alleged to be reluctant to pursue the case for diplomatic reasons. The three extradited suspects, imran Shahid, zeeshan Shahid and Mohammad Faisal Mushtaq, all in their late twenties, arrived in Scotland on 5th October 2005. They were charged with Donald's murder the following day. Their trial opened on 2 October 2006.

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On 8 November 2006, the three men were found guilty of the racially motivated murder of Kriss Donald. All three had denied the charge, but a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted them of abduction and murder. Each of the killers received sentences of life imprisonment, with Imran Shahid given a 25-year minimum term, zeeshan Shahid a 23-year minimum and Mushtaq receiving a recommended minimum of 22 years. During the six-week trial, the High Court in Edinburgh heard graphic and often harrowing testimony from forensic experts that the victim was probably alive when he was set on fire and had tried vainly to douse the flames by rolling on the ground. His charred and semi-clothed body was found in the fetal position the following day on a walkway on the bank of the Clyde. On a walkway on the bank of the Clyde. Prosecutors said the murder was one of the worst and most appalling crimes of inhumanity against an effectively defenceless boy. The killing horrified white and Asian Glaswegians alike, exposing a seam of criminality and gang culture among some young Pakistani Scots in the city and causing an upsurge in racial tensions in the area.

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The jury of nine women and six men heard that Mr Donald had been singled out by Imran Shahid, 29, known as Baldi, after Shahid had been hit with a bottle or glass at Victoria's nightclub on Sauchie Hall Street in central Glasgow the previous evening. Shahid, a bodybuilder who at the time sported a distinctive part-shaven, bleached blonde haircut, had pledged to seek revenge for the assault which he blamed on. A rival gang Boys from McCulloch Street had attacked him. The court heard and he wanted to know which white bastards had injured his pride. Shahid and his four friends set out in a stolen silver Mercedes, cruising the streets of Pollockshaws with a knife, hammer and screwdriver. They came across Chris Donald, who was a friend of the white men being sought but who was unconnected with the nightclub incident.

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The prosecution said the car contained Imran Shahid, his brother, zeeshan Shahid, nicknamed Crazy, who was driving their cousin, danish Zahid, mohamed Beks Mustak and Zahid Mohamed. Their victim was first thrown into the rear footwell of the car despite his vain attempts to grab hold of the car doorframe, and threatened with a knife, punched and kicked as Imran Shahid shouted ''I'm baldy, nobody fucks with me''. A friend who narrowly escaped from the gang, jamie Wallace, said the schoolboy cried out I'm only 15, what did I do? The prosecution said four of the men then drove their captive on a 200-mile journey via Motherwell and Dundee, phoning friends and underworld associates for advice about what to do next. Their journey was traced for the court by tracking some 200 mobile telephone calls. Eventually they drove back to Glasgow after a white associate suggested that the Clyde Walkway was a quiet spot useful for sorting someone out At the riverside. It was alleged. The 15-year-old was held down, stabbed 13 times and set alight. The men's mobiles had fallen silent just after 7pm and started up again about 20 minutes later, when the Mercedes was driven to a back lane near Glasgow University and set on fire. Later that evening, clothes from the attack were burned in another alley by Mushtaq and Zihan Shahid. The wreckage of the Mercedes held vital forensic evidence the court heard, including traces of Kriss Donald's blood and one of his trainers and Imran Shahid's leather jacket, which had been preserved only because fire crews had arrived in time to prevent the car being destroyed by the fire.

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Community leaders were extremely worried about the risks of an explosion of racial violence, with accusations that the British National Party was stoking up tensions. Mrs Donald intervened with an appeal for calm, stating it doesn't matter to my family what colour these men are. Chris is gone because of gangs, not just in Pollock Shields but every area of our communities. It emerged that Mohammad Sarwar, the Pakistani-born MP who represented the Pollockshields area, had played a pivotal role in bringing the three men to justice. Backed up by the then Foreign Secretary, jack Straw, mr Sarwar lobbied the Pakistani President, pervez Musharraf, to introduce a one-off extradition treaty to secure the men's return. One meeting took place at the funeral in Cairo of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

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The three eventually agreed to return voluntarily in October last year, but the role in the trial of the Crown's key prosecution witness, zahid Zigi Moh Mohamed, led to defence accusations of a fit-up. Mohamed, 22, had been tried and convicted two years earlier on a much reduced charge of assault and perverting the course of justice. After agreeing to give evidence against his co-accused, danish Zahid 22, who was found guilty in 2004 of Chris Donald's murder, and against the three men convicted yesterday, mohamed served half his five-year sentence, becoming a crucial witness in the latest trial on the first day of his release. David Burns, qc, the advocate for Imran Shahid, said Mohamed was a proven liar. He has got away with murder. Donald Findlay, QC for Mushtaq, said Mohammed had also supplied the Mercedes and probable murder weapon. Danish Zahid also gave evidence in the latest trial and claimed you have got the wrong men.

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During the trial, zeeshan Shahid took the stand to deny any involvement in the murder and insisted he had travelled to Pakistan on business. However, the court heard for the first time that all three defendants had long criminal histories. Imran Shahid and Mushtaq had numerous previous convictions for violent assaults, while Zeeshan Shahid had convictions for a series of minor offences. After the jury's verdict, mrs Donald stood outside the court surrounded by family and friends and said simply Justice has been done, it is over. Imran Shahid was ordered to serve 25 years before he could be considered for parole, the longest term of the three.

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Lord Uist told Shahid, 29, brother Zeeshan, 28, and Mushtaq, above, 27, that their cold-blooded execution of Chris was an abomination. He also warned other racists that they would face the full force of the law. Adding I intend to make it clear that racially aggravated violence, from whatever quarter, will not be tolerated in Scotland. It then emerged that Baldy had killed Chris after being released early from a 30-month jail term for punching a female social worker in the face, then driving a car at her as she lay unconscious on the ground. The court had heard that Chris was not part of any gang, had no history of violence and had never been in trouble with the police. His mum later stood outside the court, surrounded by family and friends, and said simply Justice has been done, it is over. Following Chris's death, a memorial plaque was placed close to the spot in Pollock Shields where he was kidnapped.

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Following their convictions, the killers particularly Imran Shahid due to his reputation and distinctive appearance continued to draw attention for events that occurred inside the prison system From the time of their remand in 2005, it was known to the authorities that other prisoners had particular intent to attack the accused, and an incident at HMP Barlinny prompted Imran Shahid to be placed in solitary confinement, a practice which continued regularly until 2010. Due to the continual threat of violence against him and the aggressive behaviour he showed when he did come into contact with others, he appealed against this measure as a breach of his human rights, which was rejected in 2011 and in 2014, but upheld in October 2015 by the UK Supreme Court. It was found that prison rules had not been correctly adhered to in the application for or extension of some periods totalling 14 months of his 56 months of detention, but that overall, the reasons for keeping him in solitary confinement for his own safety were valid. He was not offered any financial compensation, which he had tried to claim. Shahid was attacked twice. The second incident, in which a fellow murderer struck him with a barbell weight in the gym at HMP Kilmarnock in 2013, caused serious injury and also attacked another prisoner with a barbell, for which he was sentenced to additional jail time in March 2016. He had received a concurrent sentence for violence in 2009 after being racially abused by another prisoner. Shahid also received media attention for cases he brought against the prison service governors in 2017 for unlawful removal of his possessions a penis pump for erectile dysfunction, which was deemed to have negligible medical benefit, and an Xbox games console which it was believed could have been adjusted to access the internet, which were dismissed. Zahid Mohammed, who later changed his name to Yousef Harris to avoid connection to the murder, was convicted and imprisoned in 2017 for another separate incident involving weapons threats and driving his vehicle at police.

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A March 2004 article in the Scotsman newspaper alleged a lack of response by authorities to concerns of rising racial tensions and that Strathclyde Police had felt pressured to abandon Operation Gather, an investigation into Asian gangs in the area, for fear of offending ethnic minorities. In a January 2005 interview with a Scottish newspaper, prominent Pakistani-Glaswegian, bashir Mann, claimed that fear and intimidation had allowed problems with Asian gangs in some parts of the city to go unchecked. The article also quoted a former senior Strathclyde police officer who criticised a culture of political criticised by some viewers because the case featured on national news only three times and the first trial was later largely confined to regional Scottish bulletins, including the verdict itself. In preference to reporting the verdict, the organisation found the time to report the opening of a new arts centre in Gateshead in its running order. The BBC again faced criticisms for its failure to cover the second trial in its main bulletins, waiting until day 18 to mention the issue, and Peter Horrocks of the BBC apologised for the organisation's further failings. Although admitting that the BBC had got it wrong, the organisation's head of news gathering, fran Unsworth, chose to deny the suggestion that Donald's race played a part in the lack of reportage, instead claiming it was mostly a product of Scottish blindness. Peter Fahey, spokesman of race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men.

Speaker 1:

The officer responsible for investigating the murder, detective Superintendent Elliot McKenzie, remembers the case as if it was yesterday. He said I was told that a young male had been found in the east end of the city. I was also told that there had been another youth abducted the day before in the south side and it could be the same person. We had to establish if this was the murder scene or where the body had been left, but it soon became clear that this was the place where Chris had been murdered. The teenager was found in a puddle in the fetal position curled up in a ball. Mr Elliot added I think he had lain down in the puddle to put the fire out. We also saw a lot of fresh tyre tracks where a vehicle had done a three-point turn, which pointed to the abductors having been there.

Speaker 1:

The inquiry quickly focused on three gangs who operated in the Pollock Shields area of Glasgow. Baldy became the main suspect early in the inquiry after police learned about the incident at Victoria's. He was a bodybuilder and user of steroids, which made him violent and prone to moods swings. Shahid had also served a number of prison terms for violence, including four and a half years for serious assault. Mr mckenzie added his propensity for violence was without bounds. Our main aim was to find out what happened to chris between 3 pm and 7 pm the day he was abducted. Using the data from scores of mobile calls and texts made by the gang members, detectives were able to track their movements across Scotland.

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Also crucial to the investigation was finding the stolen Mercedes in Granby Lane near Glasgow University. Despite it having been set on fire and then doused in water, it was still a goldmine of incriminating evidence. A shoe belonging to Chris was found in the footwell of the car. There was also blood belonging to Chris was found in the footwell of the car. There was also blood belonging to Chris spattered across the bonnet. Baldi's jacket was also found in the boot of the car. This was enough to get an arrest warrant for all five suspects.

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Danish and Zahid Mohammed were both detained. A short time later, however, baldi, crazy and Bex had fled the country and were now living comfortable in Lahore in Pakistan from their criminal proceeds, including credit card fraud. Once located there, detective Supt McKenzie then had to persuade the authorities to allow their extradition. After more than a year of delicate negotiations brokered by Glasgow Central MP Mohamed Sarwar, the there suspects were arrested in July 2005. Mr Mackenzie flew out with a team of nine burly detectives to bring them back to Scotland. Three months later, danish Zahid had already been found guilty of Chris's racially motivated murder in November 2004 at the High Court in Glasgow and ordered to serve at least 17 years of a life sentence. Zahid Mohamed admitted involvement in the abduction of Donald and lying to police during their investigation, and was imprisoned for five years. However, mr McKenzie had promised Angela Donald he would not retire until every one of her son's killers was behind bars, describing his job as only half done.

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Zahid Mohamed, who had been released after serving half his sentence, later returned to court to give evidence against Imran Shahid, zeeshan Shahid and Mohamed Mushtaq On November 8th 2006,. The trio were found guilty of Chris's racially motivated murder at the High Court in Edinburgh. Each of the killers received sentences of life imprisonment. Mr McKenzie left the police in 2014. Mr McKenzie says the three killers that he helped extradite from Pakistan showed no remorse for what they did to Chris. He added Our investigation had a major impact on organised crime in Pollock Shields, where they had operated a reign of terror. Their conviction by a team of dedicated officers was a mixture of old-fashioned policing led by new technology. The main thing was getting these beasts for want of a better word off the streets and in prison. Before their trial. A large number of the trio's associates were also arrested to stop them intimidating witnesses.

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Over the years, angela Donald has always resisted attempts by political groups to exploit the racial element of his murder. In a 2014 interview, she said simply I ask myself, why my boy, why my innocent boy? But it was my boy. I can't change that. Fast forward to today.

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Hamza Yousaf, scotland's former First Minister, has accused ex-owner Elon Musk of trying to inflame racial tensions after he posted about the murder of a Glasgow schoolboy. Tensions after he posted about the murder of a Glasgow schoolboy. Musk shared a post about the racist killing of Chris Donald in Pollock Shields in 2004 by a gang of Scottish Asian youths, saying it was the first time he had heard of the case. Youssef told BBC Scotland News that the billionaire tech entrepreneur had amplified the murder because he seems to highlight cases that involve only people of color or Muslims. Musk has previously dismissed accusations of discrimination from the former SNP leader, with each accusing the other of racism in a long-running row. Yusuf said Elon Musk's motivation for highlighting such cases is not compassion for the victims but only to propagate far-right conspiracy. He also repeated accusations that Musk was sympathetic to white supremacists. Asked if he believed the ex-owner and Trump ally was trying to stoke racial tension, the SNP MSP said of course he was.

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Youssef, who stepped down as First Minister last year, called the murder of Chris Donald one of the most horrific race killings in Scotland during his lifetime. He added those heinous evil killers I hope they rot in prison. Quite frankly, in his initial online response to Musk, youssef pointed to the role of then Glasgow Central MP, mohamed Sarwar, a Scottish Pakistani and father of current Scottish Labour leader, Anna Sarwar. He was integral in seeing the perpetrators brought to justice. Youssef told BBC Scotland News he wanted to remind Musk it was Sarwar who travelled to Pakistan, rattled a few cages and managed to get them brought back home to face the full force of the law. He said Musk's opponents could either ignore him or confront him and promote a much more hopeful ideology where communities can exist in cohesion. Yusuf said he believed the billionaire businessman had no interest in a conversation about their differences. Thank you,