A soldier was found guilty today of the cold-blooded racist execution of a Bangledeshi waiter on Orkney when he was just 15 years old.

Michael Ross, now 29, faces a life sentence for the murder Shamsudden Mahmood.

As he was being led down to the cells at the High Court in Glasgow Ross, a sergeant in the sniper platoon, who has served in Iraq, made a dramatic escape bid.

He leapt over the dock and ran at speed from the court through a side door used only by court personnel pursued by police.

Just outside the courtroom door Ross was captured by Strathclyde Police.

His bid for freedom came after the jury of ten women and five men convicted him of murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Ross had sat emotionless as the verdict was passed.

Judge Lord Hardie told the first offender: "In view of the verdict of the jury and the fact you have no previous convictions, I require a social inquiry report. before sentencing you."

Lord Hardie deferred sentence until next month. After his capture Ross was put in the cells before being taken to prison.

Ross was the main suspect just months after the murder of 26-year-old Mr Mahmood, a Bangladeshi waiter, at the Mumutaz Indian restuarant in Bridge Street, Kikwall on June 2, 1994, but police did not have enough evidence to charge him with murder.

They knew that he was a racist who believed that blacks should be shot.

Michael Ross, like his father Edmund, 57, was fascinated by guns and all things military. His father had even bought the teenager a deactivated sub machine gun as a present.

But the police case against Michael Ross was circumstantial and for 12 years Ross thought he had got away with murder. During that time he built a new life for himself. He joined the army at 16 gaining promotion to the rank of sergeant in the Black Watch sniper platoon.

He married and had two children and became a war hero. Ross was mentioned in dispatches for his bravery after suicide bombers in a car killed four soldiers and injured a further seven..

But over the years the police on the murder inquiry never gave up. They already knew Ross had been seen in similar clothing to the killer carrying out military style manoeuvres in Papdale Woods two weeks before the murder.

His father Edmund Ross had admitted having cartridges similar to those that killed Mr Mahmood and Michael Ross's then girlfriend had said he boasted of taking a handgun from his father's gun cabinet.

But none of this was enough to take the case to court. The major breakthrough came when William Grant walked into Kirkwall police station in 2006 with a note saying he had seen the killer on the night of the murder.

Mr Grant, 51, claimed that when he went into the Kirn Corner toilets in Kirkwall, on the night of the shooting and saw Ross come out of a cubicle brandishing a pistol.