Police Say Afghan Suspect Entered Flat He Controlled After Brit Rejected Advances Sparking Deadly Row Then Wheeled Her Body Away On CCTV Matching His Instagram Shorts 🎥🥊
Greek Investigators Now Probe Whether Afghan Boxer Murdered British Charity Worker After She Rejected His Advances
Greek police are examining the possibility that Sharif Ahmadzai, the 26-year-old Afghan migrant and professional boxer accused of killing British charity worker Elisabeth-Jane Ross, murdered her after she spurned his romantic or sexual advances. Officers say a violent confrontation may have erupted inside the Athens flat where the 38-year-old Scotswoman was staying on the night she vanished.
Elisabeth’s body was found three days later, on 18 July, stuffed inside a black suitcase in a derelict building in the Kypseli neighbourhood. A homeless man made the grim discovery. The abandoned structure stands almost directly opposite the Panellinios Boxing Club, the gym where Ahmadzai trained. Initial findings point to asphyxiation as the cause of death.
George Kalliakmanis, a former police officer who now leads the Athens police union, told reporters that Ahmadzai’s presence at the flat that night was deliberate. “He went to the flat where she was staying for a reason and it’s not thought that reason is because he wanted to commit robbery and steal her cards,” Kalliakmanis said. “What was it? Nothing can be ruled out. Did she reject him? Nothing can be ruled out.”
A well-briefed source close to the investigation went further. “It can’t be excluded that he had feelings for Ross who rejected him. She was very religious and his wife was her friend. We don’t think she would have gone there. Was that the source of a row that took place in the flat on the night of the 15th?”
The flat itself belonged to the refugee charity founded by Ahmadzai and his American wife, Alaina Hall. Elisabeth had been given use of the accommodation while volunteering with the organisation. That arrangement meant Ahmadzai possessed a key and could enter without forcing his way in.
Alaina’s own actions proved decisive in the investigation. She woke in the early hours of 15 July to find her husband missing. Using the Find My Friends app she traced his phone to Elisabeth’s apartment. In the days that followed, Ahmadzai handed her 2,550 euros and a brand-new iPhone 17 Pro. Alaina grew alarmed that the money and phone had been bought with Elisabeth’s stolen bank cards. She went to police.
Greek officers later described her testimony as “crucial.” Without her information and supporting CCTV footage, they said, they would not have identified the suspect. The couple share a young child.
CCTV cameras captured a man matching Ahmadzai’s description wheeling a large black suitcase through Athens streets on 16 July. The man wore shorts identical to those Ahmadzai had posed in on his Instagram account only weeks earlier. Police say Ahmadzai has confessed to dumping the body and taking the bank cards, yet he maintains that Elisabeth was already dead when he arrived at the flat and found her in the bathroom.
Ahmadzai left Afghanistan in 2016. According to reports he paid smugglers in an attempt to reach Britain, travelling through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey before settling in Greece. He converted to Christianity in 2017. He met Alaina, originally from Georgia in the United States, while working as a translator at a migrant camp. The pair married in 2023 after bonding over their shared faith. Alaina later wrote that she had been drawn to “his growth and his heart for the Lord.” Her parents had opposed the marriage from the beginning.
Elisabeth, known to friends as Lisa, had flown from Edinburgh to Athens on 26 June to continue her volunteer work with refugees. Pastors Andrew and Sue Owen, from the Scottish church she attended, paid tribute to her “unstoppable passion to help those who were less fortunate than herself.” They said that passion sometimes took her to challenging places and that she was determined not to leave the world the same way she found it. She cared for people from every background, they added—the very quality that brought her into contact with the man now accused of her murder.
Phone messages continued to arrive after Elisabeth’s death. Texts sent to family and friends claimed she needed time alone. Her father, a lawyer in Edinburgh, received such messages for up to two weeks. Only after her identity became public on 29 July did the messages stop.
Detectives who searched Ahmadzai’s home recovered a replica Glock-style pistol and a black military-style knife. He has been charged with murder, robbery and illegal possession of a weapon. He is expected to appear in an Athens court this week.
The investigation has narrowed to two principal theories: that Elisabeth interrupted Ahmadzai while he was searching her belongings and a struggle followed, or that he made advances she rejected and the rejection escalated into fatal violence. Officers emphasise that both possibilities remain open. The presence of a key, the late-night visit, the subsequent gifts to his wife, the CCTV trail and the suitcase disposal form a chain of evidence that prosecutors intend to present in full.
Elisabeth’s family in Scotland have been supported by Police Scotland officers who are liaising with their Greek counterparts. The British Foreign Office has confirmed consular assistance is being provided. For those who knew Elisabeth through her charity work, the suggestion that her death may have stemmed from a rejected advance adds a particularly painful dimension to an already harrowing case. A woman who dedicated herself to helping the displaced and vulnerable is alleged to have been killed inside accommodation provided by the very organisation she sought to support.
As the legal process moves forward, Greek authorities continue to gather forensic evidence from the flat, the suitcase and the abandoned building. Ahmadzai’s claim that he merely discovered a body will be tested against the digital trail left by his phone, the surveillance images and the testimony of the wife who chose to speak out. Whatever the final determination of motive, the events of 15 July have already left one family grieving and another fractured by the revelations that followed.