A witness who reported seeing a man "running for his life" from the Jill Dando murder scene has identified him as ruthless Serbian assassin Milorad Ulemek.
The woman was driving along Jill's killer's suspected escape route soon after the Crimewatch presenter, 37, was shot dead outside her home on Monday, April 26, 1999. This Friday is the 25th anniversary of her killing..
In a statement to police made the next day, the witness said she saw the man sprinting with a startled look on his face. A month later she picked him out to detectives in CCTV footage, police files reveal.
The man bears a striking resemblance to Ulemek, a Mirror investigation has revealed. Speaking minutes after she saw our story on Monday, the woman said: "It's him".
Asked if she was sure, she added: "Yes, I've no doubt... I'm a bit rattled, holy s***. It was a long time ago but I can remember faces from years and years back. I'm bad for remembering names but I'm good with faces."
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She added: "I think I need to speak to the police." The CCTV was taken from Putney Bridge Tube station in South West London, around a mile from Jill's Fulham home, on April 26, 1999.
It is close to Putney Bridge bus stop, where a man who looked like a police e-fit suspect was last seen. But Scotland Yard never released the CCTV image. The female motorist, who has asked to remain anonymous, was one of four witnesses who described seeing a man in a suit running down Fulham Palace Road in the direction of the Tube station shortly after 11.30am.
Milorad Ulemek in 2004 (AFP via Getty Images)
Jill Dando was shot outside her home in Fulham, west London, on April 26, 1999 (PA)Detectives said he fitted the description of the "sweating man" who got off the 74 bus at Putney Bridge a short time later. Jill's neighbour Richard Hughes, who saw the gunman, possibly carrying a mobile phone, said he "looked like" an e-fit the female motorist produced that was never released, the files show.
Geoffrey Upfillbrown, who lived across the road and also saw the killer, said her e-fit looked "similar" to the man, police notes record. The woman said she realised she might have seen something significant on the day of the murder when she got home from work.
She said: "My mum said that Jill Dando had been shot and killed on her doorstep in Fulham. I said: 'Oh my God, I was there, I was in Fulham today."
Jill Dando filming a Summer Holiday travel show (BBC)In her first statement, given the next day, the woman said she was driving north up Fulham Palace Road when she saw a man "running for his life" on the far pavement.
"He was really motoring, nobody would have caught him," she said. "He looked straight at me… He seemed startled on seeing my vehicle and it reminded me of the look I often see on kids’ faces when they're mucking about and mistake my vehicle for a police vehicle."
She described the man as being in his 30s, "quite good looking", around 5ft 11in and of slim build. He was carrying a mobile phone and wearing a dark suit, a light shirt and a tie, she said.
The man had dark brown hair about 2in long with a parting on the left, and the witness would "recognise this man if I saw him again", the statement said.
The woman was asked to return to look at CCTV stills from Putney Bridge Tube station on May 24, less than a month after the murder.
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Speaking earlier this month, she said: "Looked through, oh my God, it seemed like hundreds, there were lots and lots and lots of people. It looked like it was at a Tube station at a ticket machine.
"Looked through those, saw the person that I saw running up the road, identified them, pointed them out, he [the detective] didn't really say anything and I left."
She got a call later that afternoon asking her to come back the next day. She said: "I went back and this is where it gets really weird."
Police search the Thames riverside near Putney Bridge after Jill Dando was murdered (PA)
Flowers outside Jill Dando's home (Daily Mirror)The woman said she was shown the CCTV of passengers passing through the ticket barriers at Putney Bridge Tube station. "Lots and lots and lots of people again, I saw the person and was like 'that's him'. Then it kind of got a bit shocking.
"So the guy goes through the barrier, looked like he had a travel card or something, put it in, walked through the barrier, walked about three steps maybe, stopped dead, looked straight up at the CCTV camera and walked straight back out of the Tube station.
"Looked very, very bizarre, really stood out. I said to the police officer: 'Oh my God, have you actually seen this? Have you seen what this guy has done? Like, rewind it back, look at this, this is weird, what's going on?'"
Screengrab taken from the report on the Serbian assassinBut she said the detective was "very dismissive" and was not interested. The woman said the CCTV of the man's actions concerned her so much that she went to the Tube station to see if there was something else he had been looking at.
She said: "There was nothing on the wall except for the camera. Why did he stand and look at the camera?" Her police statement of May 25 says she was shown a copy of exhibit MF/3, which is the original Tube CCTV.
It records her as picking out the same man walking through the third barrier from the left hand side at 12.00.34 and walking back out two seconds later.
This CCTV image was shown in court as the Land Rover in the bottom right was believed to have been connected to the murder of Jill Dando (Enterprise News and Pictures)The woman said in her 1999 statement: "I am sure that this man in the suit is the same man that I identified to police yesterday... and also that he is the same person I saw running in Fulham Palace Road SW6 on Monday 26 April."
The documents show actions were raised to "trace, interview and eliminate" the man, known as N6814, but he was never found.
Speaking this month she said: "I was absolutely, absolutely certain, there was no doubt, it wasn't like ‘oh, I think it's him’, it was definitely him."
She added: "I could probably still recognise him now." Speaking on Tuesday about the moment she saw an image of Ulemek for the first time, she said: "I said to my other half, it's him. I'm completely and utterly adamant that is one and the same person that I saw run down the road."
The witness speaking exclusively to the MirrorThe woman said she is willing to talk to the Metropolitan Police, adding: "She was a person, she was a woman, she was just putting her key in her front door and somebody shot her in the head despite the fact that she was extremely famous.
"She's a human being, somebody has killed her, that person needs to be caught, they need to atone for what they did. Her family... they need closure, her fiance, he needs closure, her friends, you know, they need some kind of closure."
When Jill died, the Yugoslav war was raging and UK planes were bombing Serbia. She made an appeal for Kosovan refugees. Within hours of her murder, the BBC took a call claiming the death was in response.
Facial comparison expert Emi Polito, who gives evidence for the police, said Man X and Ulemek, now 56, have a similar shaped mouth, chin, hairline and right sideburn, while the general shape and sizes of their noses and right ear were the same.
His report concluded: "Within the imagery limitations, no differences were found between Man X and Mr [Ulemek]."
But he could only give limited support to their being the same person because of a lack of detail in the blurry CCTV image. Ulemek’s lawyer Aleksander Kovacevic said his client, who is serving a 40-year jail sentence for two assassinations in Serbia, did not wish to comment when asked if he murdered Jill. He wrote: “I inform you that my client has been made aware of this and that he is not interested in participating.”
Rishi Sunak has said he wants the family of Jill Dando to get justice after the Mirror uncovered potentially crucial new evidence.
Downing Street insisted it would be an “operational decision” for the police on how detectives deal with the information. But the Prime Minister voiced hope that the TV presenter’s killer will be found 25 years after she was murdered in April 1999.
Mr Sunak’s spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister would always welcome anything to provide solace to the family. His thoughts would obviously be with the family at what is obviously a difficult time. Certainly the PM will always want families to receive justice.”
Scotland Yard said in a statement: "The investigation is now in an inactive phase, which means that it is not currently subject to routine reviews. However no unsolved murder is ever closed and detectives would consider any new information provided to assess whether it represented a new and realistic line of enquiry.
"Anyone with information is asked to call 101 or tweet @MetCC. Alternatively contact independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111."
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