Man accused of meat cleaver murder says he was set-up

Khusbu Shah, whose murdered body was found in the East End of Glasgow

Roshan Dantis, 30, denies killing 21-year-old Khusbu Shah at the home she shared with her husband Nagendra in Glasgow in a 120,000 ransom plot.

The mother-of-one's dismembered body was found in a holdall in some bushes behind her home in Coventry Drive, Denniston, after her death on June 1.

The High Court in Glasgow has heard forensic evidence linking Dantis to a bag containing Mrs Shah's remains and a list of items matching those thought to have been used to carry out the killing were recovered from a document on Dantis' computer.

Dantis, who was on a business and technology course at Strathclyde University, said today that he unknowingly "cleaned up" the crime scene and removed the victim's body after being threatened by a man who appeared at his home with a gun.

The engineering graduate said he failed to tell police to protect him and his wife Astrid.

Sobbing, Dantis told the court: "I didn't know at that time what I was doing. The very fact that I didn't go to the police and didn't tell them what I was supposed to tell them, it just feels so wrong."

"I have come to tell the truth which I should have told a long time ago. I have hurt a lot of people but I have nothing to do with this crime."

Dantis said he let a man into his Garthland Drive home on the morning of June 1 as he thought he had come to read the electricity or gas meter.

He said the man pointed a gun at him and told him there was something he wanted to do for him.

"He told me he wanted me to go to a house and clean up the place because things had not gone as they had expected it to go. He told me it's my classmate Nagendra's home.

"He mentioned not to tell anyone, just to go there as quickly as possible. If not he would harm me and my wife."

Dantis said took a taxi to Coventry Drive and gave the operators a false name.

The door was open and he said he saw that there had been a disturbance and some items were on the floor.

He put some items into a grey holdall he said he had been instructed to bring to the house and removed a blue bag from the bathroom where he spotted some blood.

"It looked to me like someone had come and ransacked the flat. By the time I reached the bathroom and I saw the blood I thought that maybe someone had got hurt."

Dantis, who arrived in the UK from India in September 2008, is accused of murdering Mrs Shah by attacking her with a cleaver.

He is also accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by disposing of her body in a holdall on Coventry Drive and dumping bags containing her head and hands and clothes worn by him on a nearby railway embankment.

He is also accused of attempting to extort 120,000 and a TV from Mr Shah.