Met Police Reopens Jill Dando Murder Investigation After CCTV Breakthrough

The Metropolitan Police has launched a new investigation into the unsolved murder of television presenter Jill Dando, citing a breakthrough involving newly enhanced CCTV footage. Dando, 37, was shot and killed on her doorstep in Fulham, London, in April 1999, and her killer has never been identified.

The investigation will re-examine footage from Putney Bridge train station, which captured an unidentified man, known as Man X, approximately 20 minutes after Dando's murder. Police are reportedly investigating whether the man in the footage is Milorad Ulemek, a Serbian assassin and paramilitary commander currently serving a lengthy prison sentence for war crimes.

A new investigation into the unsolved murder of Jill Dando has been launched by the Met Police following a CCTV breakthrough.

Ulemek, 58, was first linked to Dando's murder in 2024 by The Mirror newspaper, which noted similarities between his features and those of Man X based on facial comparison analysis. The footage from Putney Bridge station, located about a mile from Dando's home, shows Man X walking near the crime scene on April 26, 1999.

Cold-case officers reportedly spent ten months digitizing and enhancing the original footage using modern forensic imaging technology. This effort aims to determine if Ulemek was present at the station on the night of the murder.

Authorities were initially alerted to Man X by an eyewitness who reported seeing a man in a suit running on Fulham Palace Road around the time of the murder. The witness later identified Man X from the CCTV footage, but police reportedly dismissed her evidence, claiming her description did not match the man on the tape, despite both being described as wearing a suit and tie.

A second witness reportedly stated he was "80 percent" certain that Ulemek had run in front of his vehicle on the same road.

Gowan Avenue, Fulham, London, where Jill Dando was shot dead in 1999.

Ulemek, a former French Foreign Legionnaire, commanded paramilitary units implicated in atrocities during the Yugoslav Wars. Court proceedings have previously heard that Ulemek was asked to assassinate a "leading journalist" one month before Dando's death but declined, citing his deployment in Kosovo. At the time of Dando's murder, Ulemek led an assassination squad targeting opponents of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian politician.

Weeks before Dando's death, she had hosted a BBC appeal that raised £54 million for Kosovan refugees fleeing Serbian paramilitaries. The BBC received a call shortly after her murder claiming it was retaliation for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) attack on a television station in Belgrade, Serbia, which resulted in 17 deaths.

The journalist's tragic and brutal death has long been the subject of intense speculation.

Dando herself had acknowledged concerns about her safety due to her role on the BBC program Crimewatch, which aimed to expose criminals. While Barry George was convicted of her murder, he was later acquitted on appeal in 2007.

A spokesperson for the Met Police stated that investigations remain "ongoing" and that "recent advancements in CCTV enhancement technology have provided investigators with the opportunity to re-examine original footage."