We have revealed fresh evidence linking Serb double-killer Milorad Ulemek to the murder, including testimony from two key eye witnesses, a book written by his ex-spymaster and expert image analysis
We first named Milorad Ulemek in connection with Jill’s killing in April 2024 after a facial comparison expert found he was identical to “Man X” caught on CCTV who is still wanted for questioning.
As yet unidentified, that person was caught on camera following the gunman’s likely escape route after the Crimewatch presenter, 37, was killed after 11.30am outside her home on Monday April 26, 1999.
Emi Polito, who gives expert evidence for the police, said Man X and the Serb killer had a similar shaped mouth, chin, hairline and right sideburn, while the general shape and size of their noses and right ear were the same.
His report concluded: “Within the imagery limitations, no differences were found between Man X and Mr [Ulemek].” But he could only give limited support to their being the same person because of a lack of detail in the blurry CCTV image. Mr Polito highlighted a dent on the bridge of Ulemek’s nose which is not visible in the CCTV image but evident in the police e-fit, which he had not seen.
Moments after we published, a key witness in the murder identified Ulemek as a man she saw running away from the murder scene. The woman saw our picture of Ulemek in the Mirror and said she was certain he was the man she locked eyes with while driving nearby soon after the Crimewatch presenter, 37, was shot dead at her home.
She told police the day after the killing that the man, wearing a suit, had a startled look on his face. And a month later picked him out in the CCTV footage as Max X a month later, police files reveal. Speaking minutes after she saw our story, the woman said: “I said to my other half, it’s him. I’m adamant that is one and the same person that I saw run down the road.”
Asked if she was sure, she added: “Yes, I’ve no doubt… I’m a bit rattled, holy sh**. It was a long time ago but I can remember faces from years and years back. I’m good with faces.” But the Met never released the CCTV image.
The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, was one of four witnesses who described seeing a man in a suit running down Fulham Palace Road in the direction of the Tube station shortly after 11.30am.
The witness, a carer in her 40s, told the police she was driving north up Fulham Palace Road when she saw a man running for his life on the pavement. “He was really motoring, nobody would have caught him,” she said. “He looked straight at me. He seemed startled on seeing my vehicle.”
She described the man as being in his 30s, “quite good looking”, around 5ft 11in and of slim build. He was carrying a mobile phone and wearing a dark suit, a light shirt and a tie, she said. His dark brown hair was about 2in long with a parting on the left, and the witness would “recognise this man if I saw him again”, the statement said.
In April this year we published a major update, including testimony from a van driver who told police two days after the murder that a man in a dark suit sprinted in front of his Ford Transit without looking on the same stretch of road.
After looking at pictures of Ulemek, he told the Daily Mirror: “He does look like the man I saw.” The witness said in a statement at the time: “I had to slam my brakes on to stop or I would have crashed into him. I noticed that the man was looking behind him from where he had just run from.
“I shouted ‘you a***hole’. The man was still running across the road, he didn’t look at me when I shouted, he just continued to run. I was still not moving and I watched him run into a park.” The witness said it was Bishops Park, close to Jill’s Gowan Avenue home.
Also in April we told how Ken Williams had just placed a bet at a bookies on the same road when he saw the athletic suspect spin off the bonnet of a moving car in Fulham, West London. Ken was waiting at a pelican crossing with his black labrador Angie when the man appeared around 300 metres from where Jill lay dead outside her Gowan Avenue home.
He said: “I thought that was the man that killed her because he came from Gowan Avenue. Why would he run across that road like that when the traffic was moving? I thought it was mad.” Asked if he was sure the man was the killer, Ken, now 83, said: “Yes, definitely.”
Another vital piece in the jigsaw came when we told how Ulemek’s former spymaster had admitted one of his commandos carried out an attack abroad at around the time Jill was killed. Dragan Filipovic was a major in the Serbian security services when he said he masterminded a “secret reprisal action” in the spring of 1999 that caused “great confusion in Europe”.
At the time, Ulemek, then 31, led a unit that targeted opponents of brutal Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The Yugoslav war was raging and UK planes were bombing Serbia when Jill was shot dead. Filipovic revealed he sent special forces soldiers into Europe to carry out revenge killings in response to the bombing.
A source with knowledge of Serbian security services told the Mirror he believes Filipovic’s claim. He said: “The only thing to happen [in Europe] back then that was publicly linked to Serbia was the assassination of Jill Dando. I have very little doubt this assassination was planned and executed by some circles in Serbia.”
