Greek police have charged Sharif Ahmadzai, a 26-year-old Afghan professional boxer, with the murder of Elizabeth-Jane Ross, a 38-year-old British aid worker whose body was found inside a travel suitcase in an abandoned building in the Kypseli district of Athens. According to the charge, Ahmadzai killed Ross and then transported her body in the suitcase, which he left at the site where it was discovered on July 18.
The Daily Mail has reported new details of Ahmadzai's past, revealing that the family of his American wife had raised serious objections to their marriage from the start.
Ahmadzai arrived in Greece in 2016 by small boat via Lesbos. He later converted to Christianity and in 2023 married 28-year-old American Alaina Hall, with whom he had a child. Together they founded a refugee support organization.
Wife's family had reservations
Leanne Hall, Alaina's aunt, told the Daily Mail that her niece's parents, Thomas and Susan Hall, had strong reservations about Ahmadzai from the beginning. She said she had never met him and had only heard about him, but that her brother and sister-in-law never wanted the couple to marry.
Alaina grew up in Ringgold, Georgia, about 30 kilometers south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. After marrying, the couple set up a Christian organization called Love Every Nation Athens, which provided assistance to refugees and vulnerable families. Ross, also a Christian volunteer, reportedly knew the couple through their shared work. The apartment on Rethymnou Street where Ross was staying belonged to the organization, and both Ahmadzai and his wife had keys to it.
Two possible motives under investigation
Greek authorities believe an intense confrontation preceded the woman's death, though what triggered it remains unclear. A police source cited by the Daily Mail said investigators are examining two main scenarios. The first is that Ross caught the defendant searching through her personal belongings and attempting to steal her bank cards. The second involves a possible sexual assault or Ahmadzai's rejection following a romantic advance.
The source said investigators believe there was a confrontation, and the question is whether it began because Ross caught him searching her things and stealing her cards, or whether it involved a sexual assault or the rejection of his intentions.
The suitcase on camera
Ross's body was found on July 18 by a homeless man in an abandoned space in Kypseli, three days after she went missing. Security camera footage proved decisive in Ahmadzai's arrest. One video reportedly shows him leaving the apartment where Ross had been staying, carrying a large suitcase and a blue backpack, then heading toward an abandoned parking area. About 13 minutes later he is recorded leaving without the suitcase or the backpack. Another video reportedly shows him arriving at the 38-year-old's apartment in a car belonging to his wife.
According to police, Ross's last confirmed contact was at 9:41 p.m. on July 15, when she spoke by phone with a close friend. In the following days, relatives and friends kept receiving text messages from her phone, but grew suspicious that she was not the one sending them, since the tone and phrasing did not match how she usually communicated. The messages also referred to her wanting to leave and be alone for a while, which those close to her found unusual.
Phone signal and the Arachova trip
During the investigation, Ross's phone, which had been switched off for days, suddenly reactivated. Police traced the signal to a residence in Athens where Ahmadzai was living and arrested him there. His wife told police the family had traveled together to Arachova, and that during their stay Ahmadzai disappeared for a period of time, which worried her.
She also reportedly told police that her husband had expressed anger toward Ross, saying she was trying to influence him religiously and persuade him to join a stricter Christian group. A police source said the woman told them her husband had confided he was angry at the Briton, believing she was trying to influence him religiously and that the situation had become too much for him.
What Ahmadzai told police
Ahmadzai reportedly denied killing Ross, claiming he found her already dead in the apartment's bathroom. He is said to have admitted, however, to using her bank cards to withdraw cash and her phone to send messages to her relatives and friends while pretending to be her.
During a search of the family's home on August 1, police found a black metal replica Glock-type pistol and a black military-style knife.
From Afghanistan to Lesbos
Ahmadzai was born in Afghanistan. His father, a military commander, survived six Taliban assassination attempts before being killed in an ambush when his son was three years old; according to Ahmadzai's account, gunmen shot his father in the head as he returned home after an 18-hour shift.
When Sharif was nine, his older brother Samuel was abducted by the Taliban and never returned. Six years later, his mother, sister and younger brother were killed in a car bomb explosion, leaving him orphaned. Using the family's remaining money, he left Afghanistan and spent 45 days walking through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey in difficult weather conditions. He has claimed he saw a migrant die of cold and was arrested multiple times, and the Daily Mail reports he described an incident in which Iranian police opened fire on a group of migrants, killing 26 people.
After reaching Turkey, he tried three times to cross to Greece by sea. The boats he was on sank on his first two attempts, and on the third he reached Lesbos. In 2016, at age 16, he was placed in the Moria Reception and Identification Center, where he taught himself English and began working as a translator for a humanitarian organization. That same year he met Alaina Hall, who was volunteering at the center. In 2017 he converted to Christianity, and in 2019 he moved to Athens.
Boxing career and charity work
In Athens, Ahmadzai began training as a boxer in a park and later started coaching young refugees. He went on to become a professional boxer in the super lightweight category, fighting twice in Athens with one win and one loss.
In 2021 he developed romantic feelings for Alaina and proposed a year later. She had previously said she was drawn to his devotion to the Christian faith and his desire to help others, saying she had seen his growth and his love of God, and that this was very attractive to her. The couple married on April 29, 2023, once the necessary paperwork was completed.
Through their organization, Ahmadzai offered free boxing lessons five nights a week to unaccompanied teenagers, while the couple distributed food and medicine to refugee families and organized sports and social activities for young people in Athens. His story had been featured in an animated video, and a book about his life, titled "From Hell To Home: How Loss, Exile And Hope Built The Man I Became," was due to be published. In a related text, he had written that however dark a person's story is, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
Ross's work in Greece
Ross, who was from Edinburgh, had regularly visited Greece over the previous seven years, taking part in support programs for refugees, homeless people and other vulnerable groups. She had worked, among others, with the organization One Heart, which provides medical assistance to refugees, mainly from Afghanistan and Iran.
She arrived in Athens on June 26 and initially stayed with Greek friends in Keratsini. On July 2 she moved into the ground-floor apartment on Rethymnou Street in central Athens and continued volunteering with a Christian NGO. Ahmadzai is expected to appear before an investigating judge in Athens on Wednesday to answer the charges against him.
