Man denies murdering Glasgow woman with meat cleaver

A STUDENT accused of murdering his classmate's wife with a meat cleaver denied the killing today.

Prosecutors claim Roshan Dantis, 30, attacked Khusbu Shah at the home she shared with husband Nagendra in Glasgow's Dennistoun area on June 1 in a ransom plot.

The dismembered body of the 21-year-old from Nepal was later discovered dumped in bushes behind her house.

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Engineering graduate Dantis began giving evidence at the High Court in Glasgow today where he told the jury of his move to the UK to further his studies.

Defence counsel Donald Findlay asked the accused: "Did you have any part to play whatsoever in the killing of Khusbu Shah?

Dantis replied: "No sir."

Prosecutors have finished their evidence in the trial against the Indian national, who enrolled in a business and technology course at Strathclyde University in September 2008.

The IT specialist said he moved to Glasgow from his home country where he had been working in the banking industry.

He arrived with wife Astrid, who he had met while working in Dubai, and the couple shared a home on Garthland Drive.

Mother-of-one Mrs Shah studied at Glasgow Caledonian University and knew Dantis through her husband who studied with him.

The jury has heard how Mr Shah, 32, received a text message from her mobile phone to say his wife had been kidnapped along with a demand for 120,000. He suspected Dantis and informed police.

The telephone records of Dantis' wife showed that a number used to book a taxi to the victim's home on the day of the killing matched one used by Dantis.

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He is accused of murdering Mrs Shah in her home and severing her head and hands with a cleaver.

Dantis is further accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by disposing of her body in a holdall in some bushes on Coventry Drive and dumping her head and hands in plastic bags on a railway embankment along with his clothes and the alleged weapon.

It is also alleged that Dantis tried to extort 120,000 and a television from Mr Shah.

Dantis denies all the charges in the trial before Lord Pentland.

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