Kriss Donald (2 July 1988 – 15 March 2004) was a 15-year-old white Scottish teenager who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of five men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime.
[7] On 15 March 2004, Donald was abducted from Kenmure Street in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow by five men associated with a local British Pakistani gang led by Imran Shahid.
[3][9][10] The BBC has been criticised by some viewers because the case featured on national news only three times and the first trial was later largely confined to regional Scottish bulletins including the verdict itself.
[24] Although admitting that the BBC had "got it wrong", the organisation's Head of Newsgathering, Fran Unsworth, chose to deny the suggestion that Donald's race played a part in the lack of reportage, instead claiming it was mostly a product of "Scottish blindness".
Peter Fahy, spokesman of race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that "it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men".
[25] A March 2004 article in The Scotsman newspaper alleged a lack of response by authorities to concerns of rising racial tensions and that Strathclyde Police had felt pressured to abandon Operation Gather, an investigation into Asian gangs in the area, for fear of offending ethnic minorities.
[26] In a January 2005 interview with a Scottish newspaper, prominent Pakistani Glaswegian Bashir Maan claimed that "fear and intimidation" had allowed problems with Asian gangs in some parts of the city to go unchecked.
[33] Following their convictions, the killers – particularly Imran Shahid, due to his reputation and distinctive appearance – continued to draw attention for events that occurred inside the prison system.
[44] Shahid also received media attention for cases he brought against the prison service governors in 2017 for unlawful removal of his possessions[45] (a 'penis pump' for erectile dysfunction which was deemed to have negligible medical benefit, and an Xbox games console which it was believed could have been adjusted to access the internet), which were dismissed.
[46] Zahid Mohammed, who later changed his name to Yusef Harris to avoid connection to the murder, was convicted and imprisoned in 2017 for another separate incident involving weapons, threats and driving his vehicle at police.