A Scots soldier decorated for bravery in Iraq made a dramatic attempt to escape from custody yesterday after he was found guilty of the racially motivated murder of an Asian waiter on Orkney.

Michael Ross, a sniper with the Black Watch, was 15 when he walked into the island’s only Indian restaurant in June 1994 wearing a balaclava and shot Shamsuddin Mahmood, a 26-year-old Bangladeshi, in front of diners and staff.

After four hours of deliberation, a jury found Ross guilty of the “savage, merciless and pointless” murder, the first on Orkney for 25 years and a crime that sent shockwaves through the tight-knit island community. He faces life imprisonment.

But as court officers stood up to escort him to the cells, Ross, 29, who had only moments earlier listened impassively to the verdict, leapt over the dock and charged across the court.

To the cries of “Michael! Michael!” from relatives and gasps from the public gallery, Ross veered towards the jury before running through a side exit.

He was eventually tackled to the floor by a middle-aged court official, who held him down until police caught up.

He had been no farther than 30ft (9 metres) from a fire escape that led to the streets outside.

His captor, who suffered carpet burns to his face, was later praised by the judge for his bravery. Lord Hardie said that he had never witnessed anything like it in eight years on the bench.

During the six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Ross’s outward veneer of respectability – he was mentioned in dispatches in 2005 for bravery under fire in Iraq – steadily crumbled.

He had been, the court was told, a racist teenager whose unhealthy obsession with guns was encouraged by his domineering father, a local policeman who deliberately withheld information about the shooting from colleagues.

On the evening of June 2, 1994, Mr Mahmood, a well-liked young man described by those who knew him as “happy-go-lucky”, was serving a family of six in the Mumutaz Indian restaurant in Kirkwall, when a masked man walked in and shot him at point-blank range. He died within minutes.

A former friend from Ross’s days in the Army Cadets told police that Ross had said: “All blacks should be shot”, and a notebook found in Ross’s bedroom contained swastikas and the words “death to the English”.

Speaking after the verdict, Abul Shafuddin, 63, Mr Mahmood’s elder brother, said he was more convinced than ever that the killing was racially motivated. “Justice has been done. We are grateful to all who worked to bring the accused to trial,” he said.

Detective Inspector Iain Smith, of Northern Constabulary, said that the murder was “shocking and sickening”. He hoped that Ross’s conviction, secured after one of Scotland’s biggest investigations, was “of some comfort to Shamsuddin’s family, who have had to live for 14 years knowing that the person who murdered their loved one was still at large”.

In the aftermath of the killing, a wave of fear swept Orkney, so much so that one girl insisted on keeping her horse in the house at night with her. The Rev Ron Ferguson, leading prayers at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, said: “It’s the sort of thing you expect to happen in London, not in Orkney.”

Despite a wealth of circumstantial evidence against him, it was not until 2007 that Ross was charged. The breakthrough was a witness who saw the teenager with a gun on the night of the killing. The prosecution described the evidence against him as a “compelling, unanswerable case”.

Ross’s friends insisted yesterday that the soldier had been made a scapegoat. Kenny Pirie, 57, said: “He’s innocent – I’d stake my life on it.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said that it was aware of the verdict, adding that it would be “inappropriate” to comment until after Ross was sentenced next month.

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