The Red Cross has quietly deleted a sympathetic film it made about Sharif Ahmadzai, the 26-year-old Afghan migrant now a...

Written on 08/07/2026
theatlaswiregreece

The Red Cross has quietly deleted a sympathetic film it made about Sharif Ahmadzai, the 26-year-old Afghan migrant now accused of killing Scottish woman Elisabeth-Jane Ross and stuffing her body into a suitcase in Athens. Ahmadzai was arrested Monday over the murder of Ross, 38, whose body was found by a homeless man on July 18 in a derelict building near the Panhellenic University. She is believed to have been killed on July 15. The four-minute animated film, titled "Game of Life: The Story of Sharif," was produced in collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and a London-based artist. It was first posted to YouTube in December 2016 and opened with the line: "Each migrant has a story worthy of a Hollywood movie." The film followed Ahmadzai's journey from Afghanistan to the Greek island of Lesbos at age 15 after he arrived by small boat. It described how his father was killed in an ambush and his mother and siblings died in a suicide bombing in Kabul, before he was smuggled through Iran and Turkey to a refugee camp at Moria. The video also revealed that Ahmadzai's stated goal was to reach the UK, where he claimed a relative had promised to take full responsibility for him. Red Cross spokesman Scott Craig told the Daily Mail the video was removed "out of consideration for Elisabeth's family while the legal proceedings continue," adding the organization could not comment further while the case is active. In court Wednesday, Ahmadzai denied killing Ross. He claimed he visited her home and found her unresponsive on the bathroom floor, panicked, and took advice from an elderly man he met near a bus stop who told him to remove the body to avoid trouble. He admitted placing Ross's body in a suitcase the following day and leaving it in an abandoned building. He also admitted taking her phone and bank cards, sending messages from her phone to her contacts to make them believe she was still alive, and withdrawing money from her cards. Ahmadzai, a professional boxer, converted to Christianity and married a US-born woman in 2023. He is due before a Greek prosecutor to face formal charges, which include murder and conce...