New details about the past of 26-year-old Afghan Sharif Ahmadzai, who is accused of murdering 38-year-old British Elizabeth Jane Ross in Kypseli, have come to light a day after his detention.
The 26-year-old was remanded in custody yesterday in the case, while during the apology procedure he chose to exercise his right to remain silent.
Meanwhile, an American couple who took him into their care when he was a teenager in Lesbos say they are "devastated" by the charges he faces.

Speaking to the Daily Mail on condition of anonymity, the couple describe a teenager who they say has never shown signs of extreme violence and say they are unable to connect the man they met nearly a decade ago with the man he is being accused of today. “When I heard the news, I couldn’t imagine it was real. Not in a million years,” said his stepmother, who broke down in tears as she spoke about the 26-year-old. “It doesn’t seem real at all. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and it’s going to be a nightmare. I’m devastated. I can’t make sense of it all. “It’s like I have a mother’s heart for this boy, who is now a grown man,” she added.

They had taken him into their home after the fire in Moria.

The couple met Sharif Ahmadzai in 2016 on Lesbos. The two Americans were on the island at the time, taking part in humanitarian work in the Moria camp. Ahmadzai was just 16 at the time and worked as a translator for aid organizations. According to the couple, he had lost a few of his belongings when the tent he was staying in was destroyed by a fire that broke out in the camp.

“When the camp burned down, I took him and two other children home at about five in the morning. He stayed, the others left,” the man recalls. “We kept him with us. We adopted him,” he says.
Their relationship developed to such an extent that the young Afghan calls the couple "mom" and "dad," while their two sons essentially became his new family.
He stayed with them in Lesbos for almost two years, until their return to the U.S. The last time they said they saw him in person was during a trip to Europe in 2019.

The couple claim that during the time Ahmadzai lived with them, he had not displayed any behavior that would lead them to believe he was capable of extreme violence.
"Absolutely not," the 26-year-old's stepfather replied when asked if he had ever imagined that the young man he was sheltering could be involved in such a case.

"He had his problems, like all people. He had difficult moments, but it was usually a reaction to moments when he felt sorry for himself," he said.

His wife described the behavior at the time as "normal teenage stuff," while also noting that Ahmadzai had endured particularly traumatic experiences.

However, the man admits that many years have passed since then and that the man he knew may have changed.

"Everything I say is speculation. But I am almost certain that the Sharif I knew as a teenager is not the Sharif of today," he said.

The road from Afghanistan to Lesbos

Ahmadzai had previously spoken publicly about his life and the journey that took him from Afghanistan to Greece. According to his account, he lost his entire family in his home country.
His father and a brother were killed by the Taliban, while his mother, sister and another brother were killed in a suicide bomb attack.
He fled Kabul and followed the migration route through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, claiming to have spent a total of 45 days traveling and walking in extremely difficult conditions.
As he had indicated, two of his attempts to reach Greece from Turkey by sea failed, after the ships he was on sank. He finally arrived in Lesbos in 2016 and settled in Moria.

He later converted to Christianity and became active in the field of Christian humanitarian organizations.
In the same setting, he met his wife, 28-year-old American Aleena Hall, who had traveled to Greece to volunteer. According to the couple who hosted Ahmadzai, the two became a couple in 2021 and married two years later. Last April, they had their first child.
Ahmadzai and his wife knew 38-year-old Elizabeth Jane Ross through their Christian humanitarian work.
Ross, a Christian missionary, was in Greece volunteering. According to the information, the apartment she was living in in Athens belonged to the organization Love Every Nation Athens, and the 26-year-old and his wife had access to the property.

Ahmadzai is accused of murdering the 38-year-old on July 15 and then placing her body in a suitcase which he allegedly transported and abandoned in a dilapidated building in Athens.
According to what has been revealed about the investigation, it is suspected that his wife played a decisive role in the developments of the event, who contacted the Greek authorities when she began to consider his behavior suspicious.

She allegedly noticed her husband leaving their home during the night and found him in the apartment where the 38-year-old lived. After the body was found, according to the same reports, the young woman left their home with their baby.

The original version of the 26-year-old and the silence in seeking forgiveness

Before apologizing, the 26-year-old had denied murdering the 38-year-old.
According to what was revealed from his testimony to the police, he claimed that he had found his wife already dead and that he had then panicked, taking actions that he could not convincingly justify.

"I've never harmed anyone. I want you to understand and trust me. I just panicked," he is reported to have said.
However, yesterday, before the judicial authorities, the 26-year-old chose to exercise his right to remain silent and after the conclusion of the procedure, he was considered detained.
Now, the judicial investigation is called upon to shed light on the exact circumstances in which the 38-year-old lost her life, as well as what happened before and after her death.