In 2004 a violent Pakistani gang tortured to death a Glasgow school boy, chosen arbitrarily for being White, in a racially motivated revenge attack. Their narcissistic, vain, immigrant gang leader, with Mafia-boss pretensions, had been disrespected by a laughing gang of Scottish teens. This sparked a murderous, racist, rage which led to the horrific murder of a Glaswegian Teenager.

Kriss Donald was a quiet, homely young man, who lived in Glasgow with his separated Mum, siblings and dog. He had plans to join the Army or become an engineer and excelled in his school studies. He had never been in trouble with the Law or involved in gangland activities. Known as ‘Krypto’ to his friends, like many Teenage boys he enjoyed computer games and football and was a loyal fan to his home team, Rangers Football Club.

He lived in a racially mixed part of the Pollokshield area, just south of the city centre and close to Pollokshield East railway station. Like many Brits and Europeans he had been brought up with Christian values and was tolerant towards religiously and culturally different groups in the area, having many school friends from the local immigrant Pakistani community. 

Unseen tensions, existing between the indigenous Working Class Scots and the Pakistani newcomers, became noticeable in violent clashes between local native Scottish and violent Pakistani gangs. Whilst the Scots gangs mainly consisted of what locals might call ‘Ned’, Working Class Scottish youths, aggressively defending their patch of the city, some of the Pakistani gangs were much more serious organised criminal operations.

One such gang was known as the “Shielders”, and had ruled over the Pollokshields area of Glasgow in a 10 year reign of crime and extreme violence. Their operation was based around criminal activities such as drug dealing, extortion rackets, vehicle theft and credit card scams. As early as 1997 they had been identified by Glasgow police as emerging gangsters in the city. 

A leading figure in the Shielders gang was Imram “Baldy” Shahid, who was from a large Pakistani immigrant family of 10, which included another gang member, brother, Zeeshan “Crazy” Shahid. 

Baldy was a vain, aggressive and violent thug with Sociopathic tendencies. In 1994, when 17 years old, he used a baseball bat to attack a 25-year-old man[1] leaving him comatosed, with permanent brain damage. To evade justice he travelled back to his ancestral homeland, Pakistan, before later returning and being jailed for his crime. He was  rumoured to have chopped off the finger of a man who had been dating his sister and forced the victim to drink a glass of milk with the bloody finger still in. In 2002 he had got into a road-rage confrontation with a female 42 year old social worker who he knocked to the ground with a punch to her face then attempted to run her over with a car[2]. For this he was jailed for 2.5 years and released 3 months before the events concerning Kriss Donald occurred.

One of the rival gangs the Sheilds had skirmishes with were a Scots gang from the McCulloch Street area of Pollokshield known as the “Young Shields Mad Squad”. Baldy was not taken seriously by this gang and they perhaps observed his shallow narcissism and teased him for it.

On the evening of the 14th of March body builder Baldy was out at Victoria’s nightclub, Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, where, sitting with his hair unnaturally dyed in European blonde colour, he was spotted  by members of the Mad Squad who teased him about his appearance. He chased them outside where a shouting match ensued, resulting in one of the Mad Squad throwing a glass bottle in his direction. In a humiliating spectacle in front of club goers he attempted to chase after them but the younger lads easily out ran him and jumped in a car laughing as they made their escape. 

The next day, the little bald man, incensed by this slight to his precious reputation and standing as a gangster, gathered with the other Shielders members in the council flat of Mohammed ”Becks” Mushtaq, along with his brother Zeeshan ”Crazy” Shahid, Zahid ”Ziggy” Mohammed and Daanish ”Ferrari” Zahid to declare bloody vengeance. The plan was to find members of the Mad Squad and using a number of implements including a hammer, screwdriver and knife to ”chop them up and take their eyes out.” 

After Baldy had taken the time out to dye his hair back to its authentic black, the group got hold of a stolen Silver Mercedes car and roamed around the McCulloch Street area, hunting for their “White Bastard” rivals[19]. When they got to Kenmure Street, they came across two youths innocuously walking along, Jamie Wallace, 19 and his younger friend Kriss Donald, 15.

On the 15th March 2004, Kriss Donald was at his McCulloch Street home, off school, sick with a sore throat and had helped his mother clean after his younger twin sisters and the family dog had made a mess with some Green paint. In the afternoon feeling better he asked his Mum if he could go to his friend Jamie’s house to pick up a Video game. His Mum, reluctant to let him when he was meant to be off sick, agreed if he went and came straight back.

So Kriss had left and met his friend Jamie and had been walking with him, when the gang of enraged Paksitanis saw them and recognising Jamie as being friends with one of the gang members, chose them targets with Shahid saying “They’ll do.”[19]. Imran Shahid charged at the pair shouting “White Bastard” at Jamie[19], Kriss was caught by the gangsters, grabbed and bundled into the back of their stolen vehicle. He was then forced face down to lie in the rear footwell and was punched, kicked and threatened with a knife[3], whilst Shahid shouted “I’m Baldy, nobody f**** with me.”[4] Jamie Wallace managed to escape the fate that awaited Kriss and notified police of the abduction. As he was fleeing he heard Kriss shouting “I’m only 15, what did I do?”.

The Pakistani gangsters then drove first to Motherwell then on to Dundee, whilst phoning around 200 of their underworld contacts, attempting to find a suitable location where they could go to carry out their blood thirsty torture. Having no success, they headed back to Glasgow and took their victim to the Clyde Riverside walkway, near Celtic Football Club’s training ground. 

There, they held him over the car and stabbed him 13 times, causing him to cry out in pain[5]. He sustained severe internal injuries to three arteries, one lung, his liver, kidneys and a rib, severed during the attack[3]. Then, profusely bleeding from his wounds, he was doused in petrol, ignited into a human fireball[5] and left to die. It seems he crawled around attempting to put the fire out, eventually curling into a foetal position. He was discovered dead the next day by a passing cyclist.

There were rumours that he had his eyes gouged out, as Baldy had threatened, and that he had been castrated. However this is not mentioned in court transcripts [6].

The gang made off to a back road near Glasgow University and around 7.20pm[8] set the Mercedes on fire. They also dumped the clothes worn in the attack and set them on fire. A fire crew arrived putting out the fire which preserved vital evidence including traces of Donald’s blood, one of his shoes and Baldy’s leather jacket.[9]

In November, two members of the gang, Daanish Zahid and Zahid Mohammed, were arrested. Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid, and Mohammed Faisal Mushtaq all escaped back to Pakistan. Where they may have evaded British justice system if it wasn’t for the work of local Glasgow MP, Pakistani, Mohammed Sarwar, who it turned out was from the same region as the killers. Jack Straw worked with the Pakistani PM to arrange a one-off extradition agreement for Donald’s killers. The three were arrested in Pakistan in July 2005 and extradited back to the UK in 5th October 2005 [7].

On 8 November 2006, the three men were found guilty of the racially motivated murder of Kriss Donald. All three had denied the charge, or blamed each other, but a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted them of abduction and murder.[10] Each of the killers received sentences of life imprisonment, with Imran Shahid given a 25-year minimum term, Zeeshan Shahid a 23-year minimum and Mushtaq receiving a recommended minimum of 22 years.