Fresh hope for death row Briton

Krishna Maharaj has always maintained his innocence

A Londoner on death row in Florida faces a re-sentencing hearing after it was found there were irregularities in his trial.

Krishna Maharaj, who has lived under the threat of a death sentence for 14 years, was convicted of a double murder of two Jamaicans at a Florida hotel.

The 62-year-old, who is now in poor health, has always maintained his innocence and his campaign to be released has been supported by about 300 politicians in the UK.

Maharaj, from Peckham, was charged with murder after businessmen Derrick Moo Young and his son Duane were shot dead in the DuPont Plaza hotel in Miami in October 1986.

Business failed

The prosecution claimed Maharaj confronted Mr Moo Young to demand $600,000 which had allegedly been defrauded from his relatives in Trinidad.

However the former fruit importer denied the killings, saying the two were victims of Miami's drugs underworld.

Maharaj's case was taken up by Birmingham-based human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who has been honoured for his work on behalf of convicts on death row.

Maharaj and his wife, Marita, moved to the US in the mid-1980s but his property investment company failed, leaving him penniless.