The man wrongly convicted of Jill Dando’s murder insists police must investigate a Serbian assassin identified as running from the direction of the crime.
Barry George spent eight years in jail for the 1999 killing before being released in 2008 when he was unanimously acquitted following a retrial.
In an interview with the Daily Mirror, George, now 64, said Milorad Ulemek needs to be questioned over Crimewatch star Jill’s shooting outside her home on April 26, 1999.
He told us: “If he’s the person who committed that crime then he should face the full letter of the law and be brought from Serbia to the UK and be dealt with through the courts and a fresh Crown Prosecution Service dealing with it… not… anyone who’s worked on the previous Dando case.”
In a hotel on the outskirts of Cork, Ireland, where George now lives, we revealed our findings to him and his older sister, Michelle, who has spent 24 years fighting his corner.
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We have sifted through thousands of case file documents to piece together what really could have happened to Jill 25 years ago tomorrow.
As a result of our investigation, a key witness from the day of the murder this week identified Ulemek as the man she saw running from the direction of the crime, a short distance from Jill’s home.
Barry with his sister Michelle Bates (PHILIP COBURN)She was one of four witnesses who saw a man running along Fulham Palace Road in South West London, minutes after Jill was shot outside her home around the corner in Gowan Avenue.
One month after the murder, Metropolitan Police officers asked the same witness to view CCTV from nearby Putney Bridge Underground station.
Jill Dando filming a Summer Holiday travel show (BBC)On May 24 and 25, 1999, she identified a man in the images as being the man running along Fulham Palace Road. Police did not launch an action to trace, interview and eliminate the man on CCTV for almost a year, and they never found him.
Just six weeks after the official action was made to find the man, George was arrested – and then charged on May 29, 2000. He was convicted on July 2, 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Asked how he felt about police waiting a year before they started looking for the man in the CCTV, George said: “It makes me very concerned that the police aren’t doing their job properly. It reinforces that they weren’t doing their job properly.
“As a police force I can understand dealing with different things and that they are to a certain extent, stretched… but not to the point they would dismiss something as poignant as that.
“I agree the person should be looked into very heavily and not just brushed over ‘because we had someone else… the easy target…’ [rather] than turn around and get the right person, If the guy is believed to be the person.
“Whether he is or isn’t he should be looked into and heavily questioned and dealt with accordingly.
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Police search the Thames riverside near Putney Bridge after Jill Dando was murdered (PA)
Jill Dando in October 1996 (Getty Images)“If he’s the person responsible and found to be the right guy then, if there’s enough evidence, then he should be dealt with, with the full letter of the law.”
A facial recognition expert has also analysed the only CCTV image we can find of the man at Putney Bridge Tube station. He compared it to Milorad Ulemek and said there are “no differences” in their features.
In the weeks after Jill’s murder the Met Police team, led by senior investigating officer Hamish Campbell, made it clear their focus was on a professional assassin and pleaded with the public to help them find one or two men seen fleeing the scene in Fulham.
An e-fit was produced of a “sweating man” seen at a bus stop on Fulham Palace Road, a short distance from Jill’s home at number 29 Gowan Avenue.
George became the focus of the Met’s attention in February 2000 when DC John Gallagher was given ‘Action No 1637’ that called for the tracing, identification and elimination from the inquiry of ‘Barry Bulsara’ – George’s pseudonym.
In March 2000, he discovered George had convictions for sex offences in the 1980s and on April 17 and 18, officers searched George’s flat, close to where Jill lived.
Police found an empty gun holster, gun magazines and condolence messages about Jill which George had collected from neighbours.
George, who has been diagnosed as having frontal lobe brain damage, Asperger’s, ADHD and learning difficulties, as well as epilepsy, said he was “transparent and truthful” during the investigation.
Michelle, 69, says his disabilities are part of his alibi. George’s defence team for his acquittal argued the same. She said it was “appalling” that evidence had been “sat on” by police for 25-years and also demanded officers investigate the Mirror’s findings.
“They’ve had it for 25 years, within just days of Jill being killed, and yet a year later, when they still haven’t found this person in the CCTV… they chose Barry George.
“Barry George went to prison for eight years and we have spent 24 years trying to fight the British justice system that still wants Barry George in the frame for this.
“Firstly, the police were absolutely certain it was a professional hit and that was eroded after a year when they fixed their sights on Barry and they started to change things.
“How did this very professional killing suddenly become a killing done by a disordered mind? That is not sensible.”
Reflecting on the Mirror’s finding, George added: “Everything should be looked into. “Why wasn’t it? Why did they target the ‘scapegoat’?
Asked if it was important somebody was found for the murder, George added: “Definitely. They need to be sought and found, there is no question. Someone’s been murdered. You can’t get away from a crime where someone’s been murdered. They’ve got to be sought and found and implicated if necessary, and then that intelligence brought to court.”
He said police “should have been doing their job” to investigate lines of enquiry now reported by the Mirror while he was in jail.
“The police need to be taken to task or there be a formal enquiry about this,” he added. “The evidence you’ve uncovered needs to be brought in the mix and there be an inquiry from the highest level, and seek the right person, not the wrong person. I feel very strongly about that. Knowing now what you’ve uncovered that points to a person in Serbia, that brings serious concerns.
“Any reasonable-minded member of the public, they’re going to be looking at that and saying ‘there are serious concerns’ with what you’ve uncovered.”
He added that despite some still believing him to be the killer, he said he knows he is innocent of the crime and tries to rise above those who still accuse him.
Asked if he had a message for the person who committed the crime, he said: “I feel sadness for what they’ve done and they should be brought to book, brought through the courts.
“I don’t want and I wouldn’t want an innocent person to be brought to account but if they’re found to be guilty, if the evidence pans out they’re the person responsible, then they should be held accountable in any competent court of law.”
Ulemek’s lawyer Aleksander Kovacevic has 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 told us: “I inform you that my client has been made aware of this and that he is not interested in participating.”
Scotland Yard said in a statement: "The investigation is now in an inactive phase. However no unsolved murder is ever closed and detectives would consider any new information."
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