07 August 2024 , 20:58
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British man Kris Maharaj spent 38 years in jail and passed away after fighting nearly 40 years to clear his name, human rights lawyer Stafford Smith said in a social media post
The British man put on death row in the US despite later being proven innocent by a judge has died while still a prisoner in Florida.
Kris Maharaj spent 38 years in jail for the murder of a dad and son said to have stolen laundered money from drug lord Pablo Escobar. The 85-year-old was convicted by a US court in 1986 and sent to death row.
In 2002, Maharaj’s sentence was overturned and commuted to life after he had spent 17 years awaiting a lethal injection. In 2019, a judge ruled that with the help of the anti-death penalty lobby Reprieve, co-founded by Clive Stafford Smith, he had proved his innocence, but a US Court of Appeal ruled the evidence of his innocence was not enough to free him.
But while still fighting for his freedom, Maharaj died on Tuesday inside a prison hospital. He passed away "after 38 years fighting injustice," human rights lawyer Stafford Smith said in a post on X.
Maharaj spent 38 years in jail for the murder of a dad and son ( Image: Collect unknown)
The solicitor said Maharaj’s body will be returned to England as per the wishes of Maharaj and his wife, and said the funeral will take place in Bridport "in due course". Following his death, his wife, Marita, said: "I promised Kris in 1976 that we would be together until death us do part, and I am devastated that he died alone in that horrible place.
"I want him brought back to the UK for burial as the last place he would want to be is where he was falsely charged with murder. Then I will devote the rest of the time that God allows me to clearing his name, so I can go to meet him in heaven with a clear conscience that I have done my best for him."
In a statement, his brother and former Trinidad and Tobago attorney general, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, paid tribute to his sibling. "Kris always maintained his innocence," he said.
"Based on the information he gave me at the time when he was charged for the offences, I formed the opinion that he was innocent. In my conversations with him during the period of time he was incarcerated and during my visits to see him in the prison, I was further convinced that he was innocent.
"I witnessed the trial in Miami and realised that all the requisite evidence which should have been led before the jury was not produced to the court. All efforts thereafter to fight that conviction and get a new trial failed.
"He was, however, successful in getting a ruling from a judge that he was innocent. The US Appeal Court, however, ruled that the evidence of innocence was not enough to free him. He was successful in getting the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
"It is unfortunate that those who were responsible for his first trial did not take steps to have all the relevant evidence put before the jury, That error led to him not being able to get a second chance at a retrial to produce all of the evidence.
"He found this legal battle to assert his innocence for approximately 37 years and during that period of time. He continuously maintained his innocence."
Maharaj, who was born in Trinidad but moved to England in 1960, was found to be responsible for the killing of father and son. For years, the Brit fought hard for his innocence, insisting that he was framed for the murders, despite prosecutors claiming he killed the two men because they owed him money.
The Brit had some business relations with one of the murder victims, Derrick Moo Young, whom he said defrauded him of £315,000. Maharaj was suing him over the affair when Young was killed.
Young and his son Duane were found dead in the hotel on the same day that Maharaj went to meet a business associate, who he said never turned up. Police found his fingerprints in the guest room where the shootings occurred.
Maharaj said he was there for a meeting but had left before the Moo Youngs were killed. According to the defence motion, nineteen fingerprints found at the crime scene have never been identified.
Maharaj’s lawyers said evidence suggested the murders were committed by former members of a Colombian cartel. A motion filed by his US attorneys in 2014 said a "Colombian drug cartel member confirmed that the Moo Young murders were committed at the behest of Pablo Escobar."
"The Moo Youngs were laundering money for the Colombian cartels," the defence motion said. "This is what precipitated their murders."
Mahraj protested his innocence for decades ( Image: Justin Sutcliffe)
An ex-cartel member confirmed that "Maharaj was not involved in the murders of the Moo Youngs and that they had to be eliminated because they had lost Colombian drug money," according to the defence motion. It had been hoped fingerprints found in the Muriel McKay murder files could have freed Maharaj.
Lawyer Stafford Smith believed the OAP was stitched up by a friend who pulled the trigger in a Miami hotel room in 1986. The same man - Adam Hosein - was questioned by UK police in 1969 over Muriel’s murder but fled the country soon after.
The Trinidadian criminal had lived near Muriel at the time kidnappers snatched her from her London home after mistaking her for the wife of tycoon Rupert Murdoch. Hosein’s two brothers, Nizamodeen and Arthur, were jailed for life for her kidnap and murder, but her body has never been found.
The case was back in the headlines last month when police carried out another dig at the Hertfordshire farm where she was held hostage. Stafford Smith had wanted the fingerprints police took from Hosein in 1969 compared with the unidentified ones found at the scene of the Miami murders 17 years later.
He said: “The idea that Adam Hosein may have got away with murder in Britain and then got away with another murder in America – in between all his drug dealing, and resulting in Kris going to death row and spending 38 years in prison – is absolutely shocking.” Hosein, now dead, ran front companies in the 1980s for Escobar, the character portrayed in the Netflix hit Narcos.