New details have emerged regarding the troubled past of Sharif Ahmadzai, the 26-year-old Afghan national charged with murdering 38-year-old British woman Elisabeth Jane Ross in the Athens district of Kypseli, a day after he was remanded in custody.

Ahmadzai was held in pretrial detention yesterday over the case, having invoked his right to silence when he appeared before the investigating magistrate.

Meanwhile, an American couple who took him under their wing as a teenager on the Greek island of Lesvos have said they are “devastated” by the allegations he is facing.

Speaking to the Daily Mail on condition of anonymity, the couple described a teenager who, they say, never showed any sign of extreme violence, adding that they cannot reconcile the young man they knew almost a decade ago with what he now stands accused of.

“When I heard the news, I could not imagine it was true. Not in a million years,” said the woman who effectively became his foster mother, breaking down in tears as she spoke about him. “It doesn’t feel real at all. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it will all have been a nightmare. I’m devastated. I can’t make sense of any of it. I have a mother’s heart for this boy, who is now a grown man,” she added.

Taken in after the Moria fire

The couple first met Ahmadzai in 2016 on Lesvos. The two Americans were on the island at the time, taking part in humanitarian work at the Moria refugee camp. Ahmadzai was just 16 and working as an interpreter for aid organisations. According to the couple, he had lost what few possessions he had when the tent he was living in was destroyed in a fire that broke out at the camp.

“When the camp burned down, I brought him and two other children to our house at around 5am. He stayed, the others left,” the husband recalled. “We sort of kept him with us. We adopted him a bit,” he said.

Their relationship grew so close that the young Afghan came to call the couple “mum” and “dad”, while their two sons effectively became his new family.

He lived with them on Lesvos for almost two years, until they returned to the United States. The last time they saw him in person, they said, was during a trip to Europe in 2019.

“He never gave any sign of being capable of this”

The couple say that during the time Ahmadzai lived with them, he never displayed any behaviour that would have led them to believe he was capable of extreme violence or murder.

“Absolutely not,” the 26-year-old’s foster father said when asked whether he had ever imagined the young man he had housed could become involved in such a case. “He had his problems, like anyone does. There were difficult moments, but they were usually a reaction to times when he felt sorry for himself,” he said.

His wife described his behaviour at the time as “normal teenage stuff”, while noting that Ahmadzai had been through particularly traumatic experiences.

The husband nonetheless acknowledged that many years have passed since then and that the person he knew may have changed. “Anything I say is speculation. But I’m fairly certain the Sharif I knew him as a teenager isn’t the Sharif of today,” he said.

From Afghanistan to Lesvos

Ahmadzai has previously spoken publicly about his life and the gruelling journey that brought him from Afghanistan to Greece. By his own account, he lost his entire family in his home country.

His father and one brother were killed by the Taliban, while his mother, sister and another brother died in a suicide bombing.

He left Kabul and followed the migrant route through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, saying he spent a total of 45 days travelling and walking in extremely difficult conditions.

As he had recounted, two attempts to cross by sea from Turkey to Greece failed after the boats he was travelling on sank. He eventually reached Lesvos in 2016 and settled at the Moria camp.

He later converted to Christianity and became involved with Christian humanitarian organisations.

It was in these circles that he met his wife, 28-year-old American Alaina Hall, who had travelled to Greece to volunteer. According to the couple who had hosted Ahmadzai, the pair got together in 2021 and married two years later. They had their first child last April.

Ahmadzai and his wife knew 38-year-old Elisabeth-Jane Ross through their Christian humanitarian work.

Ross, a Christian missionary, was in Greece doing volunteer work. According to reports, the Athens flat where she was living belonged to the charity Love Every Nation Athens, and Ahmadzai and his wife had access to the property.

Ahmadzai is accused of killing Ross on 15 July and then placing her body in a suitcase, which he is alleged to have transported and abandoned in a derelict building in Athens.

According to details that have emerged from the investigation, his wife is reported to have played a decisive role in the case coming to light, after she approached the Greek authorities when she began to suspect his behaviour.

She is reported to have discovered that her husband had left their home during the night and traced him to the flat where the 38-year-old was living. After Ross’ body was found, according to the same reports, the young woman left their home with their baby.

His initial account, and silence before the magistrate

Before his formal questioning, Ahmadzai had denied killing Ross.

According to details that emerged from his police statement, he had claimed he found the woman already dead in the bathroom of the apartment and had panicked, taking actions he was unable to explain convincingly. “I have never hurt anyone. I want you to understand me and believe me. I just panicked,” he is reported to have said.

Yesterday, when he appeared before the judicial authorities, Ahmadzai chose to exercise his right to silence, and at the end of the process he was remanded in custody.

The judicial investigation must now establish the exact circumstances in which the 38-year-old died, as well as what happened both before and after her death.