 Roshan Dantis murdered his friend's wife |
Roshan Dantis has been convicted of murdering Nepalese student Khusbu Shah, the wife of his friend from university. The High Court in Glasgow heard that he cut off her head and limbs with a meat cleaver before putting her body parts in a bag and dumping them. He then tried to extort money from her husband Nagendra Shah. Dantis, 30, had moved to the UK with his wife Astrid, having previously completed an engineering course in India. He met Nagendra Shah in 2008 when they started a business masters degree at Strathclyde University. The High Court in Glasgow was told Dantis and Mr Shah, 32, became "very close". It emerged during the trial that Dantis, who earned a low wage as a football steward, had become consumed with jealousy at the Shahs' plans to buy a restaurant in Shetland and other purchases such as a second-hand car and large screen TV. He formed a plan to kill Mrs Shah, 23, and extort £120,000 from her husband. Dantis compiled lists on his PC which prosecutors claimed was him "costing out" the murder. This included him detailing the purchase of a meat cleaver, holdalls, balaclava and cleaning solutions. He also borrowed books from the library including Devil Bones and another on murders, pathology and forensic detection. Dantis bought the murder weapon from a Chinese supermarket and was seen on CCTV buying holdalls from a store in Glasgow's east end days before the killing. On 1 June 2009, Mrs Shah took her young son, Nikhil, to nursery and had planned to meet her husband that lunchtime. She returned to her home in Coventry Drive in the Dennistoun area of Glasgow and it was there Dantis attacked her at about 1100 BST. He strangled her before hacking her body with the cleaver. It is thought he cut off her head and limbs while she was slumped in the bath. Dantis then put her body in a holdall and dumped it in bushes just a short distance from the flat. He put Mrs Shah's head and hands in bags, along with the cleaver and the top he had been wearing, before ditching them at a nearby railway embankment.  Mrs Shah's body was found in the Dennistoun area of Glasgow |
Mr Shah grew concerned when his wife did not appear and tried repeatedly calling her. That evening, he received a text from her phone, sent by Dantis, which claimed she had been abducted. It included the message: "We have ur wife. Don't call police, we are watchin u. If anyone is told we will kill her and u. "Call ur fat Indian classmate home and sell ur TV to him 300 pounds." It went on: "Arrange for 120000 pounds and go immediately first train to London. No compromise or u all die." Mr Shah immediately went to his friend for help but Dantis repeatedly told him not to go the police and agree to the demands. Two days later, Mr Shah was sent another text from the "kidnappers" which stated: "This is our final msg to u. We give up searchin for u and follow ur friend.  The cleaver used to kill Mrs Shah was found in undergrowth |
"Waste of time and money. U will not hr from us again. We go back to London." Dantis sent this message having bought a new Sim card that day. Mrs Shah's remains were eventually discovered and Dantis's DNA was detected on items such as the holdall that contained her body and the cleaver. He was also found to have used mobile phones within the area of the Shahs' home around the relevant times. Police arrested Dantis after days of surveillance. During his interview, he denied being near the Shahs' home on 1 June, but, in court, claimed he had met the demands of a mystery gunman who stormed into his flat. Dantis said he was told to remove the holdall that had Mrs Shah's body after "things had not gone as expected". He said that he was being "framed" for the killing and sobbed: "I did not murder Khusbu Shah. That is the truth." But a jury at the High Court in Glasgow did not believe him and convicted him unanimously of the murder. Judge Lord Pentland jailed him for life and also recommended that he be deported at the end of the sentence. | 
We have ur wife. Don't call police, we are watchin u. If anyone is told we will kill her and u 
