The wife of the 26-year-old Afghan man accused of killing British aid worker Elizabeth-Jane Ross gave police detailed testimony describing a series of incidents that, in hindsight, raised her suspicions about her husband's behavior in the days surrounding the killing, according to case documents.
The woman told investigators she met her husband, Sharif Ahmadzai, during the 2015-16 refugee crisis while volunteering at the Moria camp on Lesbos.
He moved to Greece permanently in 2021, the couple married in 2023, and had their first child this year.
She said he had converted to Christianity, first becoming Protestant. The couple met Ms. Ross through a manager of the apartment housing the charity they ran together.
In her testimony, the wife said she last saw Ms. Ross on July 5 and 12, the latter occasion alongside her husband.
She recalled waking during the night of July 15 to find her husband missing from bed, and using a shared location-tracking app to discover he was at Ms. Ross's apartment. When she called him, he claimed he had been watching a World Cup match at a café and stopped by the apartment to use the bathroom.
On July 18, after learning Ms. Ross's family was searching for her, the wife messaged Ms. Ross directly and received replies from her phone claiming she was visiting friends and heading to Turkey — messages the wife said did not match Ms. Ross's usual writing style or English level.
She also told police her husband gave her an unexplained sum of cash to hold and bought her a new iPhone on July 16, claiming the money came from an uncle — an explanation he had reportedly used before. In a second statement, she said she recognized her husband and their car in security footage police showed her from the day the suitcase was transported.
The 26-year-old has been ordered held in pretrial detention and has exercised his right to remain silent.