Harrowing surveillance footage has captured the moment a man, who was arrested in connection with the death of a British woman in Athens, Greece, was seen wheeling a suitcase containing her remains through the city streets. The disturbing video reportedly shows Sharif Ahmadzai, 26, hauling the large, black case through the city center. He is depicted in the footage dressed in a black T-shirt and shorts, carrying a blue rucksack, as he slowly navigates his way towards an abandoned building in Kypseli on July 16.
In the tranquil neighborhood of central Athens, police claim that he abandoned the body of 38-year-old Elisabeth Jane Ross and the suitcase in an unused building before fleeing the scene. Elisabeth, also known as Lisa, was later found on July 18 by a homeless man who alerted the authorities.
Ahmadzai has been taken into custody and charged in connection with Lisa’s demise. Local media reports suggest that he is facing charges of intentional homicide, robbery, and weapons offenses. While he admitted to transporting Lisa’s body in the suitcase to the police, he denies the murder accusation as per information from the Guardian.
According to George Kalliakmanis, the honorary president of the police officers’ association in Athens, Ahmadzai confessed to moving the body with a trolley to the site. Police have CCTV footage of him carrying out this act on the night of July 16. He also admitted to withdrawing €10,000 from ATMs using her credit cards. However, he refutes the murder charge, which the police do not believe.
Ahmadzai, a champion boxer from Afghanistan who ran a refugee charity in Athens, arrived in Lesvos in 2016 as a migrant and later married Alaina Hall, a US-born individual, in 2023. The couple established a ministry to aid refugees in Athens and are thought to have crossed paths with Elisabeth through their charitable work, as reported by the Daily Mail. They had a key to the apartment where Lisa was residing, a property owned by their organization, Love Every Nation Athens.
Initial medical reports indicate that Elisabeth died from asphyxiation, with an ongoing autopsy awaiting toxicology reports to confirm the official cause of death.
Authorities discovered that Lisa arrived in Greece in late June and stayed in various locations before renting a ground-floor apartment in Exarchia. Cops mentioned that the suspect had access to her apartment through a set of keys. Lisa was last in contact with a friend three days before her body was found.
Concerns arose among her loved ones when they received text messages that seemed unusual for her style of writing. Alaina reportedly provided crucial evidence to the investigation, including a location-sharing application indicating her husband’s presence at Lisa’s apartment on the night of July 15 and into July 16. After Lisa’s identity was made public, she suspected Ahmadzai’s involvement and left their residence with her child.
Alaina handed over a mobile phone and €2,550 in cash to the police, which she believed might have belonged to the victim. During interrogation, Ahmadzai claimed to have found Lisa deceased in the apartment’s bathroom before disposing of her body in a suitcase the following night.
However, police allege that he later confessed to using the victim’s mobile phone to impersonate her in messages sent to relatives and friends, along with withdrawing money using her bank cards. A search of his residence on August 1 uncovered a replica Glock-style pistol and a military-style knife, leading to additional weapons charges.
Ahmadzai’s website mentions that his father, a military commander in Kabul, was killed in a Taliban ambush when he was four. His entire family died in a suicide car bomb when he was 15. Ahmadzai arrived in Greece via a small boat and went on to win the Greek super lightweight boxing title in March 2023.
He has been referred to the appropriate prosecuting authority to face the charges and is expected to appear before magistrates in Athens on Wednesday.
