'Best friend' was driven by jealousy to plan killing and extortion

HE WAS Negandra Shah's "best friend", someone in whom he thought he could confide about the most private of matters.

Seemingly a normal man of "intelligence, sophistication and achievement", in truth, the High Court in Glasgow heard, Roshan Dantis was a "monster" consumed by jealousy.

Only a few months after the 30-year-old befriended Mr Shah at Strathclyde University, he was plotting the murder of his wife, Khusbu, in the most brutal fashion, before attempting to hold him to ransom.

Over the course of the month-long trial, the court heard how Dantis, who earned a low wage as a football steward, became envious at the Shah's plans to buy a restaurant in Lerwick, Shetland.

In April last year, Dantis was formulating a way to get at their savings. Documents recovered from his laptop revealed Dantis had been "costing out the murder". They included details of where to buy a Chinese cleaver, a balaclava, a mobile phone SIM card, DIY tape, cleaning products, bin bags, a hooded top from Primark, and a "trolley" bag from Argos.

The investigation also revealed Dantis had borrowed books from the library on harrowing subjects. They included titles on murders, pathology and forensic detection.

By 1 June, he was ready. That morning, Mrs Shah took her son to nursery before returning to her home in Dennistoun. Later, she planned to meet her husband for lunch. But she would never be seen alive again.

At around 11am, Dantis forced his way in to the Shahs' flat in Coventry Drive. He strangled Mrs Shah before hacking off her head and hands with the cleaver. The accountancy student's body was dumped in a holdall near her home. The rest of her remains were bundled into plastic bags and left at a railway embankment.

Mr Shah told the court how he tried contacting his wife at 11:55am, but to no avail. Later that day, he received a text message from her phone. "We have ur wife," it stated. "Don't call police we are watchin u. If anyone is told we will kill her and u."

He said that when he met Dantis and told him that he was considering calling the police, he advised against it, suggesting Mr Shah pay the ransom.

"I said I was going to call 999. He said don't call 999," Mr Shah recalled.

Breaking down in tears, Mr Shah estimated that Dantis told him not to call the police about "15 or 20 times". However, when he eventually decided call 999, he remembered Dantis's face "went dark and his lips dry".

The court heard DNA matching that of Dantis was found on the blue holdall containing Mrs Shah's body and on a hooded top stained with her blood.

Dantis claimed he unknowingly "cleaned up" the crime scene and removed Mrs Shah's body after he was threatened by a man who appeared at his home with a gun.