00:00:07
NARRATOR: Confusion at a
suburban house in East London. POLICEMAN: Stay there
for now please until we
00:00:11
establish what's going on. We got intelligence
that someone's been shot at this address.
00:00:15
Don't ask me why, but I just
felt it in my guts this was going to be very, very nasty.
00:00:19
NARRATOR: A stalker. He was monitoring. He was tracking her,
watching, filming. NARRATOR: A stockpile
of lethal weapons.
00:00:28
NEIL LANCASTER: It was
as early as 2015 when he bought his first ever crossbow. NARRATOR: And a
jealous ex-husband
00:00:34
with a deadly obsession. For Sana to have tried to
jump out of a window, of course,
00:00:39
the threat to her must
have been really great. POLICEMAN: Hands
behind your back now.
00:00:44
Hands behind your back now. POLICEMAN (ON RADIO):
The suspect's outside. NARRATOR: Nearly 20 years after
their arranged marriage, what
00:00:52
had Ramanodge
Unmathallegadoo done to his pregnant former bride? POLICEMAN: Right.
00:00:58
You're under arrest, OK, for
the offense of attempted murder. [theme music] NARRATOR: Mauritius, for
tourists a luxury destination.
00:01:32
In 1999, for one teenage
girl called Sana, it was about to become a prison. CLARE MACKINTOSH: When
Sana met Ramanodge,
00:01:39
she was just 16 years old. The wedding was arranged
by their families and took place on Sana's
16th birthday in 1999.
00:01:49
Ramanodge was 30,
almost twice her age. NARRATOR: Nazir Afzal
is a lawyer specializing
00:01:55
in violence against women. NAZIR AFZAL: It's not
uncommon for the parties to meet for the very first
time on their wedding day
00:02:03
as this individual and Sana did. NARRATOR: Her 16th birthday,
an arranged marriage,
00:02:09
and her first ever
meeting with her husband. There's nothing inherently
wrong with arranged marriages.
00:02:14
It's what happens afterwards
that's perhaps concerning. At 30, Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
was almost old enough
00:02:21
to be his new bride's father. There's no doubt that
when there's a bigger age gap in a marriage or
in a relationship this
00:02:28
certainly will play into power
imbalance in that relationship. And so Sana being 16 and
Unmathallegadoo being 30
00:02:37
would have been a
power imbalance. Sana's mother, Ellemah,
trusted that he would
00:02:42
keep her young daughter safe. That trust would be abused. POLICEMAN: You're under
arrest, OK, for the offense
00:02:48
of attempted murder. What could they
possibly have in common? They could have
nothing in common.
00:02:54
So the whole relationship has
to be based on something else. That's a red flag for a start,
because she's just a child.
00:03:02
In many countries
across the world, there are still very
stereotypical expectations
00:03:08
of women in a marriage,
so whether that's to be the homemaker, to have
certain roles as a wife,
00:03:15
and to behave in certain ways. And unfortunately,
in this case, it seems that Sana
was also expected
00:03:24
to behave in a particular way. NARRATOR: From the outset,
Ramanodge laid down the law for his new
wife, known at the time
00:03:31
by her birth name of Devi. I believe that Sana lived in
fear, almost from the moment
00:03:38
that they were
married initially. He controlled her. He abused her. He beat her.
00:03:43
He was violent towards her. She had nothing like the
life that she thought she would have with him.
00:03:49
NARRATOR: Despite
the beatings, custom meant that she felt she
could not leave Ramanodge,
00:03:54
and just a year
later, Sana gave birth to the couple's first child. She's pregnant by
the time she's 17.
00:04:00
Her life now is
mapped out for her. It's clear that in the
relationship between Sana
00:04:08
and Unmathallegadoo
that what we can see is a really difficult,
abusive relationship.
00:04:16
He was a
controlling bully, who sought to control every
single aspect of her life.
00:04:20
And he viewed her
as his property. One of Sana's friends reported
how Sana had broken down to her
00:04:27
and said that she'd
married too young. She'd been so desperately
unhappy with Ramanodge.
00:04:33
NARRATOR: Over the
next two years, the couple had
two more children. After the youngest
was born in 2006,
00:04:38
there was another
life-changing decision. NEIL LANCASTER:
Around this time, they decided to move
to the United Kingdom
00:04:43
in search of a better life. EMMA KENNY: There's been some
huge transitions for Sana.
00:04:49
You know, she's got married as
a very young girl, you know, school-aged girl. And now, she's transitioning
to a whole new country, which
00:04:57
means that she's moving away
from everything that she knew at a time, with
respect, that she might
00:05:01
have needed some extra support. They then moved to
North East London, where he gets a job
at Newham General
00:05:07
Hospital as a site manager. NARRATOR: In a foreign country
with three young children
00:05:11
to look after, Sana's
relationship was worsening. The marriage that Sana
was in was probably hellish.
00:05:20
I don't think she probably
saw a day of love or care across the entirety
of that marriage.
00:05:27
The person she
was married to was cruel and controlling
and entitled, and he frightened her.
00:05:36
He's brought her to a new
country, where she's isolated. He's consistently
using violence on her.
00:05:41
He's threatened her consistently
that if she leaves him there will be repercussions.
00:05:45
And now, he's at
the point where he's going to carry on through with
those potential repercussions.
00:05:50
JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
Sana was in a marriage where she had literally no one
to go to, nowhere to go to.
00:05:57
She was completely trapped. She was a prisoner
inside the marriage. NARRATOR: As well
as physical attacks,
00:06:04
Ramanodge subjected Sana to
psychological intimidation. It reached a peak in
one incident in 2012.
00:06:11
She actually felt that she
was under threat in that moment, and she actually put herself at
risk physically to escape him.
00:06:17
NARRATOR: Angry with her,
not for the first time, Ramanodge was sharpening knives,
staring intimidatingly at Sana.
00:06:25
Sana broke her ankle jumping
from an upstairs window, having felt in fear for
her life after seeing
00:06:31
the look in her husband's
eyes as he looked at her sharpening knives. NARRATOR: Sana had thrown
herself out of a window,
00:06:39
causing serious injury to
avoid her threatening husband. After 13 years of marital
abuse, it was the final straw.
00:06:46
She decides to
take the massive step of actually going to the
police and reporting this man.
00:06:54
Salvation women or women
from minority communities generally have low confidence
and low trust with authority.
00:07:01
It takes an enormous
amount of courage often for them to tell
the police, for example,
00:07:06
what's happened to them. The fact that she had
to jump out of a window and hurt herself in order
to flee an attack from him
00:07:14
tells you everything you need
to know about the relationship. Ramanodge was arrested
out of this incident,
00:07:19
and he was prosecuted. However, on judge's
directions, he was acquitted. Ramanodge's acquittal
at the 2013 trial
00:07:27
on a legal technicality left
Sana without the protection of a conviction against him.
00:07:33
She felt she had only one
option, to leave her husband. Faeeza Vaid is an expert in
law and religious studies
00:07:40
and has a recognized
and extensive understanding of the
lived experiences of Muslim and Hindu women.
00:07:46
For victims of abuse, it
is so difficult for them to finally take the
courageous step to leave
00:07:53
their abusive situations. In Sana's case, she had
experienced multiple forms of abuse a number of times.
00:08:02
JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
Sana was clearly absolutely terrified of him. FAEEZA VAID: For her to
actually take the courage
00:08:09
to leave that relationship must
have been so difficult for her. The concept of honor and shame
and the community pressures,
00:08:19
particularly around an
arranged marriage, where it's a marriage of families,
would have meant that she
00:08:24
would have seen it as-- it would take an
enormous step for her to be able to step
out of the door
00:08:29
and say I've had enough of this. NARRATOR: Sana won an
emergency non-molestation order
00:08:34
from the courts to
keep Ramanodge away. In 2014, their
divorce was finalized. The fact that Sana chose to
leave her abusive relationship
00:08:45
tells us not only how bad
the situation must have been but the incredible courage that
she would have needed to do so,
00:08:52
and that she was
determined to give not only herself but
also her children a safer environment to live in.
00:08:59
NARRATOR: Sana may have
escaped her abusive marriage, but she was far from safe.
00:09:04
FAEEZA VAID: It is not
uncommon for ex-partners to continue to harass
their former victims.
00:09:10
And in Sana's case, we can
see that this really happened. Disturbingly,
Ramanodge made it clear,
00:09:16
pretty much from the
get-go, that even though she left him
he had absolutely no intention of letting her go.
00:09:22
NARRATOR: Ramanodge
had lost control, and not just over Sana. Soon after this,
Ramanodge loses his job
00:09:29
at Newham General Hospital. He clearly had
lost total face. He had lost his place
within the community.
00:09:36
And now, he'd lost
this ridiculous concept of masculinity, that he wasn't
a man anymore, you know?
00:09:43
And therefore, he felt the
only way he could do something about it is to restore
his manliness by showing
00:09:49
Sana who was in control. NARRATOR: Ramanodge
Unmathallegadoo's life in London had fallen apart--
00:09:55
out of the family home,
without work, without a wife. What would a man who had married
a teenage girl on the same day
00:10:03
that he had met her
do to take revenge on her decision to leave him? It seems that
Ramanodge began putting
00:10:10
his wife under surveillance. NARRATOR: Ramanodge
Unmathallegadoo's life was falling apart.
00:10:23
His wife had left him,
taking their three children. He'd lost his job
at the hospital.
00:10:27
And to cap it all, Sana now
found love with someone else. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Sana began
to move on with her life.
00:10:34
She found a new relationship. She's in a foreign country. She's got no support around
her, so meeting somebody who
00:10:40
could meet those needs
and make her feel safe, they would have been a very
attractive proposition.
00:10:45
I don't think that anybody could
blame her for wanting that. In stark contrast, Ramanodge's
life was spiraling downhill.
00:10:54
He's now homeless, so he
has gone from a man with an honorable job, living
with his wife, his children--
00:11:01
he's now living on the streets. NARRATOR: Ramanodge launched a
new strategy to exert control,
00:11:06
watching his wife's every move. Ramanodge began putting
his wife under surveillance.
00:11:12
He was monitoring her. He was tracking her,
watching, filming. Wanted to know absolutely
everything that she was doing
00:11:21
all the time to the point that
it was the only thing that mattered in his life. NARRATOR: Much of
Ramanodge's secret footage
00:11:29
was shot from an
unexpected location. Numerous tapes were recovered
from the couple's property.
00:11:36
NARRATOR: He filmed
Sana and her new family from their own
unlocked garden shed.
00:11:41
JANE MONCKTON SMITH:
He was paranoid, and he was revenge-fueled. All of these are signs of
stalking and harassment, which
00:11:48
is against the law in the UK. NARRATOR: He also
appeared to be driven by a twisted
interpretation of something
00:11:54
that he'd grown up with in
Mauritius, a code of honor. He's ruminating. He's angry.
00:11:59
How dare she leave him? And he doesn't feel that anybody
has a right to what he owns.
00:12:05
Honor-based violence is
a crime committed often to protect the perceived
honor of a family,
00:12:14
and this happens when it
is mistakenly believed that someone has brought
dishonor to a family
00:12:20
or to a relationship. And in Sana's case,
Unmathallegadoo seems to believe that his
former wife has brought shame
00:12:29
onto his relationship and
potentially his family, not only for
leaving him but also
00:12:35
for re-establishing
her relationship with somebody else. NARRATOR: Now, as he stalked the
ex-wife who dared to leave him,
00:12:42
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
began plotting something altogether darker. He is now destitute,
and it's clear to me,
00:12:50
he blames his ex-wife for this. He's gone from this decent
position to being homeless.
00:12:56
He wants revenge. NARRATOR: In 2014, 15 years
after marrying Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo, Sana's
life was altogether
00:13:03
different and much happier
than her first husband's. She was starting her life
again with a new man.
00:13:10
Finally, she was with
a man that she loved and living the life
that she wanted to live.
00:13:15
She took her children. She got a protective
order from the courts. She moved on with a new
and happy relationship.
00:13:26
And everything seemed to be OK. NARRATOR: With
her three children she settled down with
builder Imtiaz Muhammad
00:13:34
in a 500,000 pounds house
in Ilford, East London. Imtiaz is one of
those special men, who
00:13:41
doesn't see a woman with
lots of children as baggage but actually sees her as an
instant family, an opportunity
00:13:48
to grow his own family. NARRATOR: The transformation
from Mauritian teenage bride
00:13:52
to happy London wife
and mother was complete. She was now Mrs. Sana Muhammad. FAEEZA VAID: Sana was certainly
trying to rebuild her life
00:14:01
and seemed to be
doing so really well. The newfound happiness
with another man would have
00:14:07
a devastating impact
on her now ex-husband, Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo. The marriage with her
new partner is a trigger.
00:14:15
Given his level of obsession
and how he feels that he's completely lost
face, he then spends
00:14:22
the best part of three years
absolutely fixated on her. He does not want her to
be happy with anybody else.
00:14:28
He'd rather her be
unhappy with him than happy with somebody else. Sana and Imtiaz soon
started a family of their own,
00:14:35
adding two children to the three
that she'd had with Ramanodge. By 2018, Sana was pregnant
with her sixth child.
00:14:42
The very fact that he now
looks at his ex-wife as not only being in the
possession of another man,
00:14:48
she's now pregnant,
therefore, exacerbating that sexual jealousy. That puts her in a really
dangerous situation.
00:14:55
NARRATOR: Since 2015,
Ramanodge had continuously been stalking his ex-wife. Ramanodge had become
increasingly obsessed
00:15:03
with Sana and her new family. He continued to follow her. He wouldn't let things lie.
00:15:11
This was a man who felt
that he completely owned her, and he was having his
rights taken away.
00:15:18
NARRATOR: Jobless
and sleeping rough, Ramanodge was
banned by the courts from contacting Sana or
coming within 100 meters
00:15:26
of her new home in
Ilford, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He won't let go.
00:15:31
He's not going to let go. He is obsessing about her. He clearly blames her
for all his misfortune.
00:15:38
NARRATOR: Criminologist
Jane Monckton Smith believes Ramanodge's
obsession was rooted in his personality and
the view he had of marriage.
00:15:47
From the day they got
married, he would have believed fiercely that he owned Sana.
00:15:57
He was an incredibly
intense person. He wasn't a very nice person. So at the point that she
left him, separated from him,
00:16:07
and the courts helped
her to leave him, he became absolutely obsessed-- obsessed with
getting his revenge.
00:16:19
And it would have
started immediately. NARRATOR: The court order
meant nothing to Ramanodge.
00:16:27
Restraining orders are
quite complicated when you're in a very high risk situation.
00:16:31
Sometimes, a restraining
order will work. Sometimes, it
makes things worse. And sometimes, they are
completely irrelevant.
00:16:46
The person doesn't even
acknowledge or care that there is a
restraining order in place.
00:16:53
He still will not let this go. He will not ever let this
go until he has his revenge.
00:17:00
His desire for revenge
has never gone away. It's just built-- it's
become his life now.
00:17:07
He's homeless. He has nothing, but
whatever it is he's got, he has spent on buying the
equipment with which to exact
00:17:14
his revenge on his ex-wife. He was really ruminating
on the potential of harm that
00:17:20
he could do to his ex-partner. She was in grave danger. NARRATOR: At the same time as
he was stalking Sana Muhammad,
00:17:26
Ramanodge was assembling
an arsenal of weapons. He meticulously
planned it, and there
00:17:32
is one thing he wanted to do. It was as early as
2015 when Ramanodge bought his first crossbow.
00:17:38
NARRATOR: And that's not all. Duct tape, cable ties,
a knife, and a hammer-- this was the weaponry
that he'd amassed,
00:17:48
and he used telescopic ladders
to vault over garden fences so that he could go
in the dead of night
00:17:55
and plot up in that garden shed,
where he could see the comings and goings of that home.
00:18:00
He's got weapons. He's got restraints. You know, got everything
that he needs. NARRATOR: Ramanodge stored
his terrifying hoard right
00:18:09
under the noses of his
quarry in hiding places near to their home, but
the cache of weapons
00:18:15
almost proved his
downfall when a passerby came across them by chance. These were discovered
stashed near to his
00:18:23
ex-wife's home in March 2018. GARY HOLMES: It was discovered
by a local resident that
00:18:29
was concerned of
what they had found, and what they'd actually
found, amongst many things,
00:18:34
was harpoons normally used
for killing sharks in the sea. Not a lot of call for harpoons
and shark-hunting in Ilford.
00:18:44
NARRATOR: With his arsenal
reported to the police, Ramanodge began
stockpiling all over again.
00:18:50
The determination
Unmathallegadoo had, that once that
cache of weaponry had been discovered and
effectively been deprived,
00:18:58
he couldn't get his
hands on it any longer. He had to go back to the drawing
board, so he did it again.
00:19:02
NEIL LANCASTER: He buys
two further crossbows. And all of this is
despite the fact
00:19:07
that he is homeless
with no money. And yet he's buying
expensive, dangerous weapons.
00:19:12
Following these
purchases, Ramanodge continued to surveil
the house where Sana lived with her new
husband and their two children.
00:19:22
NARRATOR: After years
of plotting revenge on the wife who had left him,
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
00:19:27
was ready to execute his plan. CLARE MACKINTOSH: On the
morning of November 12, 2018,
00:19:33
Ramanodge took up
position in the garden shed outside the house belonging
to Sana and Imtiaz Muhammad.
00:19:40
He was armed with the
crossbows, duct tape, cable ties, a hammer, and a knife. NARRATOR: With his weapons to
hand, the moment for action
00:19:51
had arrived. So here we are. Picture the scene. Four years after
their divorce, here
00:19:56
is this man, this
dangerous, obsessed man in the shed in their garden. He has two crossbows.
00:20:03
He has a knife. He has a hammer. He has spare bolts. He has cable ties. He has duct tape.
00:20:09
He's got murder on his mind. He's essentially armed and
ready to torture and kill.
00:20:14
From the moment that
he hatched his plot to murder Sana, he was
driven by one thing,
00:20:19
and that was pure hatred. And he would not rest
until he achieved that. NARRATOR: Ramanodge
Unmathallegadoo
00:20:26
had married his bride on the
day of her 16th birthday. He saw it as a
lifetime commitment.
00:20:31
Sana saw it as a
life sentence, a life now very much under threat. [ominous music]
00:20:48
Happily married to
her second husband and heavily pregnant
with her sixth baby, there was a dark shadow over
the life of Sana Muhammad.
00:20:56
Even when a victim of domestic
abuse leaves her relationship, she is still in danger.
00:21:03
Sana is still very, very
worried about her ex-husband. She fears something
might happen.
00:21:09
CLARE MACKINTOSH: Imtiaz knew
that his wife Sana was still terrified of her
ex-husband despite the fact
00:21:15
that the non-molestation
order forbade him from coming within 100
meters of her or their home.
00:21:22
NARRATOR: November 12, 2018,
Sana and Imtiaz get up. It's early. Sana and Imtiaz were
preparing for a dinner
00:21:29
party with friends. Sana was up early,
starting to make the food that they would eat.
00:21:35
NARRATOR: The older children
are getting ready for school. Imtiaz is cleaning things away.
00:21:40
NEIL LANCASTER: Imtiaz
takes an empty TV box out to the shed to store it, tidying
the house up in preparation
00:21:46
for the arrival of her friends. NARRATOR: When he
reaches the shed, he is in for a
terrifying surprise.
00:21:52
He opened the
garden shed and froze, because there was Ramanodge
standing with two crossbows
00:21:59
raised to his shoulders. He's horrified because he
sees his wife's ex-husband, this dangerous man
they've been living
00:22:07
in fear of for all these years. He thought he was dreaming
when he suddenly saw Ramanodge
00:22:12
appear with the crossbows. And in that moment,
Imtiaz actually really freezes for a few seconds
because he's in complete shock.
00:22:23
But then he runs,
sprinting back to the house, screaming to his
wife to get out.
00:22:30
NARRATOR: With a crossbow
slung over each shoulder, Ramanodge's long
wait for revenge
00:22:35
had finally come to an end. Obviously, in this
moment, Ramanodge knows that he's got to act now.
00:22:40
He's got armed weapons. He's got lowered crossbows. He's got cable ties. This is all going to happen.
00:22:46
It's going to happen now. He's prepared, and now
he's going to do it. NARRATOR: There were five
children in the house,
00:22:52
three of them his own. His ex-wife, Sana, was
eight months pregnant with another man's child.
00:22:57
What exactly was
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo intending to do? Ramanodge burst
into the house.
00:23:03
He's quite in
control of himself. This is the culmination
of everything that he's been planning.
00:23:08
He knows what's going to happen. He wants her to know
what's going to happen, and he doesn't care
really who witnesses it.
00:23:14
This is a job to be done,
and he's going to do it. Throughout the whole
thing, one of the things
00:23:21
that struck me was
that he was very calm. NARRATOR: As her
ex-husband calmly walked into her house armed
with two lethal crossbows.
00:23:33
Sana turned to flee upstairs. She screams. She runs upstairs to
get away from him.
00:23:39
NARRATOR: Ramanodge gave his
former wife a chilling look. Seeing his ex-wife,
he smiles at her coldly,
00:23:45
gives her a thumbs up. Sana panicked, screaming,
heavily pregnant. This is a horrific scene.
00:23:52
She tried to escape, her and her
unborn child, up those stairs. Sana was running up the
stairs, petrified for her life.
00:24:00
Ramanodge fired an 18-inch
arrow up through her thigh and into her abdomen. With absolute cold blood
he executed her as he stood
00:24:08
at the foot of those stairs. He used that crossbow,
and he pointed upwards. And he took her life in a most
brutal and horrendous way.
00:24:16
NARRATOR: Screaming
and terrified, Imtiaz feared the
second crossbow might be intended for him.
00:24:22
Ramanodge had two crossbows. One of which had
been discharged, but the other was still loaded.
00:24:29
When he entered
the house, it was clearly his
intention that he was going to kill Sana for sure.
00:24:37
But the fact that he
had a second weapon, I think we can speculate
that it was his intention
00:24:45
to kill her husband also. In the hands of someone
as unbalanced as Ramanodge, it is frightening to consider
how dangerous weapons
00:24:53
such as this could be. NARRATOR: In fact, help was at
hand from a different quarter,
00:24:57
Ramanodge's eldest child. In spite of the danger and the
horror of seeing his mother
00:25:02
shot by his father,
the 18-year-old boy stepped in to end the violence. His own son disarms him and
takes the crossbow from him.
00:25:12
To which his father says,
it would have been easier if you hadn't have been here.
00:25:17
Can you imagine the trauma
that this young person is going to have in their lives?
00:25:23
It's-- it's sad,
unbelievably sad. NARRATOR: Having
shot his ex-wife with a powerful crossbow
in front of his children,
00:25:31
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
simply walked away. Once he is satisfied that
Sana will actually die from her
00:25:42
injuries, he becomes
incredibly matter-of-fact about everything, sits down, and
waits for the police to arrive.
00:25:51
He calmly goes downstairs and
pours himself a glass of water, and he sits in the garden to
wait for the police to arrive.
00:25:58
NARRATOR: DCI Gary
Holmes was leading the homicide
investigation team when the emergency call came in.
00:26:04
Being on call, I received
a phone call to tell me that there had been a
young lady who'd been
00:26:09
shot at an address in Ilford. POLICEMAN: Hands
behind your back now. Hands behind your back now.
00:26:15
POLICEMAN (ON RADIO):
The suspect's outside. Don't ask me why, but
I just felt in my guts
00:26:20
this was going to
be very, very nasty. NARRATOR: At first,
police struggled to piece things together.
00:26:26
GARY HOLMES: When the first
officers arrived at the scene, what they found was
clearly, initially
00:26:32
an element of confusion. POLICEMAN: Stay there. [police radio chatter] Stay there for now,
please, until we
00:26:39
establish what's going on. We've got intelligence
that someone's been shot at this address.
00:26:43
Body worn cameras
are almost universally worn now by uniformed
police officers patrolling the streets.
00:26:48
And in this particular
case, you can see the horror of the scene. But more than that,
you can see the horror
00:26:54
that the officer witnesses
and almost what he feels. NARRATOR: When the
police arrived,
00:26:59
an ambulance crew was
already on the scene. GARY HOLMES: She was being
treated by the London
00:27:03
ambulance service at that time. And also, at the scene was some
of the sons of Unmathallegadoo.
00:27:13
So obviously, to begin with
you have people that are upset. There is initially
confusion, and you
00:27:19
need to put the facts together. When you look at the body
cam footage from the police,
00:27:23
one of the things
you'll notice is he's calm, cool, and collected. He's ready for what's
happening next.
00:27:27
When they're talking
to him, he doesn't seem to be that concerned. And again, what's
going on in the mind,
00:27:34
in the brain, in
fact, of a human being who has just executed somebody,
a completely innocent party.
00:27:40
You would imagine some kind
of emotional disturbance. GARY HOLMES: When you
study the body worn video,
00:27:46
when one considers the
terrible, terrible crime that he has just committed,
to have demonstrated
00:27:56
no outward emotion, no-- no upset, not even
panic, not even distress that he himself
is being arrested, to me
00:28:05
was most unusual. POLICEMAN: Right. You're under arrest, OK, for
the offense of attempted murder.
00:28:10
NARRATOR: As Ramanodge
was being arrested, ambulance staff were treating
the horrific crossbow
00:28:14
injury to Sonia's abdomen. I rather naively
at the time thought it was going to be some
kind of smaller weapon,
00:28:21
having never been exposed
to crossbows before. But when I saw it, it was
truly an horrendous weapon.
00:28:28
She suffered
catastrophic injuries from the man that started
his period of abuse
00:28:34
almost 20 years ago. The trajectory of the puncture
wound of that crossbow bolt had ruptured so many
major internal organs.
00:28:43
NARRATOR: Sana Muhammad
died in hospital three hours later
from a heart attack brought on by her injuries.
00:28:49
And Unmathallegadoo, I
think, was resigned to the fact that he had carried
out ultimately
00:28:55
what he set out to
do, and that was the murder of his former wife. Particularly tragic that
we have a victim of abuse who
00:29:02
endured so much, has
found the courage to leave her abusive
situation, and rebuild
00:29:09
her life in a safe
space for her family and particularly her children. And for her life to
have been cut short.
00:29:18
NARRATOR: Sana Muhammad
had been murdered by the man she had married
nearly 20 years earlier.
00:29:23
Would her unborn baby survive? [suspenseful music] The life of Sana's unborn
child hung in the balance
00:29:39
as her body was
rushed to hospital. The trajectory of
the wound was such that it narrowly
missed the unborn child
00:29:46
that she was carrying
by literally a miracle. Miraculously, her
unborn son is later
00:29:51
delivered by emergency
cesarean section and survives these
terrible injuries. NARRATOR: Within moments
of depriving six children
00:30:00
of their mother,
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo began to spin a web of deceit. What you could
pick up on that body
00:30:08
worn video was the fact that
Unmathallegadoo was saying that he had attempted
to shoot Imtiaz, who had
00:30:19
been the partner, the husband,
the new husband of Sana, the victim. POLICEMAN: You've told myself
that you've come round here
00:30:26
for your wife's current partner,
and there's an affair involved. She's got in the
way, where you've
00:30:32
admitted on my body worn video
that you fired and shot her. OK? NARRATOR: If he wasn't going to
deny firing the crossbow bolt
00:30:42
that killed his ex-wife,
what would his defense be? That what had happened
was all an accident.
00:30:49
When Unmathallegadoo was
detained at the police station, very soon after the attack,
his whole entire response
00:30:57
to the news that
indeed his former wife was dead was quite chilling,
and he used those words,
00:31:05
it was unfortunate. And to me, when you
say "unfortunate," "unfortunate" is like,
I've had a slight accident.
00:31:13
It's unfortunate knocked
over a cup of coffee. He was talking about the
murder of his ex-wife,
00:31:18
the mother of his children,
and yet he absolutely bore no-- no kind of emotion to that.
00:31:27
Again, absolutely chilling. He's so delusional,
regarding his arrogance, that he somehow believes
by weaving these absolutely
00:31:37
transparent stories
together that somehow people will believe him, and it shows
that whilst he had thought very
00:31:42
much about executing the
plan he had never actually thought about defending it. NARRATOR: The police
needed to make
00:31:50
sure their case was watertight,
that it would convince a jury. We had witness evidence that
he had committed the crime,
00:31:56
that he had pursued his ex-wife,
and that the crossbow had been discharged, and she died.
00:32:02
NARRATOR: Gary Holmes
leading the homicide investigation was
worried that the evidence
00:32:07
was not going to be enough. Another aspect
of the case that concerned me was that
because it was so terrible
00:32:14
and it was so blatant that
I was concerned that he could try and say,
well, I was suffering
00:32:19
from a temporary insanity. So what I needed to
prove was every element leading up to that day
was present in his mind.
00:32:30
So what does that mean? That means he planned it. He meticulously
planned it, and there
00:32:34
is one thing he
wanted to do and that was to murder his former wife. That was what he set out to do.
00:32:41
The mere fact that he went
there armed with two crossbows to me is indicative
of that fact.
00:32:48
NARRATOR: When the
case came to trial at the Old Bailey in
April 2019, Ramanodge
00:32:52
pleaded not guilty to murder. There was a twist to come as
the story played out in court.
00:32:59
In this particular
trial, the judge had said that mental
health is not an issue.
00:33:05
Unmathallegadoo
had been assessed. It wasn't an issue, and
if it had have been, that would have been a defense.
00:33:12
So it was not an
issue, and the judge was quite clear about that. NARRATOR: One of the jurors
with some medical training
00:33:18
thought they knew better. A member of the jury,
unbeknowing to us, was an ambulance person,
worked for an ambulance service
00:33:27
and had said that
in their opinion, when they looked at his-- Unmathallegadoo's
demeanor post-arrest
00:33:34
on the body worn video, I
refer to it as chilling-- they said he's exhibiting
the signs of PSTD.
00:33:41
NARRATOR: The trial was
halted, and a retrial scheduled for November 2019. The prosecution still
had to make their case.
00:33:50
I then needed to prove
that actually he wasn't just there to scare them. NARRATOR: At his second Old
Bailey trial in November 2019,
00:33:59
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
indeed claimed that he had never meant to kill his ex-wife Sana.
00:34:06
During his trial,
he gave evidence that this was an accident. He claimed the crossbow
had gone off by mistake.
00:34:12
NARRATOR: If that was the case,
why did he have the crossbow in the first place?
00:34:17
He claimed that he'd
purchased the crossbows in order to go hunting in Mauritius, that
he simply happened to have them
00:34:24
with him when he
came to the house in order to talk to
Imtiaz about his concerns
00:34:30
that his daughter
was being brought up following the Muslim faith. Ramanodge's defense
in court is ludicrous.
00:34:36
It's like a pantomime. NARRATOR: Changing
his story again, he said he wanted
to challenge Imtiaz
00:34:42
about bringing his
daughter up as a Muslim when Ramanodge was a Hindu. He claimed in the trial
that one of his motives,
00:34:49
or his overriding motive,
was to scare Sana in order for her to ensure
that his daughter
00:34:57
was not brought up as a Muslim. Unmathallegadoo claimed that
Sana was forcing their children
00:35:03
to live their lives as Muslims. The fact that his daughter--
his daughter was now a Muslim
00:35:09
would be shameful for him
within his community, within the people that he speaks to.
00:35:15
And that would have perhaps
driven him to the scare her. Of course, it's a nonsense.
00:35:21
NARRATOR: Nonsense
maybe, but it was another thing the prosecution
had to show was a lie.
00:35:26
This wasn't spontaneous. This was not a man who
suddenly lost his mind. You know, he wasn't provoked.
00:35:33
This was something that had-- it was a meticulously
planned murder. In fact, it was years
in the planning.
00:35:40
NARRATOR: To prove a history
of violence and abuse DCI Gary Holmes dug out the
police report from the time
00:35:46
a terrified Sana had
jumped out of the window to escape her bullying husband
and had broken her ankle.
00:35:51
Almost speaking
from the grave, Sana's statement was in
that bundle of case papers,
00:35:58
and that ent-- that enabled me
to really get to know from her perspective, even
though she was dead,
00:36:05
all those years previously, the
very manipulative and coercive nature of Unmathallegadoo.
00:36:13
And again, that
was quite chilling. NARRATOR: It was
powerful evidence that revealed Ramanodge's
defense for what
00:36:19
it was, a pack of lies. The CPS were able to present
clear evidence that Ramanodge
00:36:28
had been watching the house and
the family for well over a year and had purchased the crossbows
for the first time in 2015.
00:36:37
Here we have a truly
systematic, premeditated murder. NARRATOR: The jury
accepted that Ramanodge
00:36:47
intended to kill Sana, and
Imtiaz, and their unborn child. He was found guilty of murder.
00:36:56
In that second trial he was
convicted, sentenced to life in prison with a
minimum recommendation
00:37:02
that he must serve
33 years in prison before he could even
apply for parole. Ramanodge comes to
execute his ex-wife.
00:37:09
It's as simple as that,
but what is extra chilling about his action is, firstly,
the cool, calm, collected
00:37:14
manner that he carried it out. But secondly, before
he actually shoots her, he gives a thumbs up.
00:37:19
So Imtiaz is actually
watching this happen, and he's basically
celebrating the fact
00:37:25
that he's going to do it. It's almost a joke to him. If you're really
trying to scare somebody,
00:37:29
you wouldn't have armed it. You know? You point it knowing that
you couldn't hurt anybody,
00:37:34
but he didn't do that. He'd armed it. A crossbow is a difficult
and slow thing to reload.
00:37:39
He went with two
because he wanted to kill at least two people. It's very, very
large, very heavy.
00:37:46
And the ferocity at which
they discharge a bolt is as lethal as any
bullet, any knife.
00:37:52
That's what was
going to happen. He was going to
execute them all. NARRATOR: What had prompted
Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo
00:38:00
to murder the woman
that he had married nearly 20 years earlier? It was an honor killing.
00:38:06
He was-- he'd lost face. He was now ashamed. Felt that he was shamed
within the community.
00:38:12
He was determined to restore,
quote, unquote, the honor-- his honor, his honor
within the community,
00:38:18
and he felt that the
only way he could do that was by killing her. It is bizarre.
00:38:24
It's ridiculous. But undoubtedly, it
was something that was clearly playing on his mind.
00:38:29
In the UK, on average, two
women are murdered each week by their former partners.
00:38:34
In this particular
case, I think what is highlighted is that even
when a victim of domestic abuse
00:38:41
leaves her relationship
that she is still in danger. He's probably
the kind of danger
00:38:47
that we all have
nightmares about. He's the individual
who can murder the woman that he once loved
and try to murder her partner.
00:38:57
NARRATOR: The murder
of Sana Muhammad left a family without a
mother, a wife, a daughter.
00:39:03
Sana Muhammad was
a lovely person, completely inoffensive I would
say, gentle, loving, caring.
00:39:13
And I can honestly say that
all the people we interviewed were devastated. And you could see the hole
it had left in their lives.
00:39:26
The fact that so many
people would now be without this wonderful person. Imtiaz was devastated by the
loss of his soul mate, Sana.
00:39:37
He was emotional in court. He referred to her as his
life partner, his best friend, his everything.
00:39:43
You feel for them because
they have lost the most important person in their life.
00:39:49
Sana's life is now over. That was his wife, the
mother of his unborn child, the mother of his two young
children, his wife, his--
00:39:57
the love of his life. You know, you add the
young children of Sana that she had with
Unmathallegadoo.
00:40:05
They are now without a mother. Sana's mother, Ellemah,
will never forgive Ramanodge.
00:40:11
There are days, she says,
where I don't want to live. Sana was an only child. She was the whole
world to Ellemah.
00:40:18
Sana's mother also feels
a level of complete betrayal on his part, the
fact that Ramanodge
00:40:24
came into their lives. She accepted him as a son. Unmathallegadoo,
to my knowledge,
00:40:29
has never shown one shred
of remorse to this day. NARRATOR: What started
with an arranged marriage
00:40:35
had ended with murder. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: When these
two got together, a 16-year-old
00:40:41
and a 30-year-old, in
those circumstances with his personality
and his violence,
00:40:47
if she ever decided to leave
him, this was inevitable. Sana was certainly
trying to rebuild her life
00:40:56
and seemed to be
doing so really well. And it is a tragedy that her
life was taken in this way
00:41:04
by somebody who believed that
he still had the right over her. I do believe that he would
have planned to kill Imtiaz,
00:41:12
the new husband, the unborn baby
clearly that Sana was carrying that's miraculously survived.
00:41:19
But I also think he would
have killed the children of Imtiaz and Sana. I have no doubt in my mind.
00:41:26
But what, for me, stood out
about this particular case was the hatred that
he was driven by.
00:41:33
He hated her because she
had taken the decision she was not going to be bullied.
00:41:38
She was not going to be
intimidated or coerced by this horrible individual. [ominous music]