FLORIDA: Another Briton facing death penalty in US

Even before Tracy Housel was buried in an Atlanta suburb yesterday the attention of British campaigners against the death penalty was shifting to another Briton facing possible execution in the US, in a case that is far more controversial and bizarre.

 Clive Stafford Smith, the British born, New Orleans based lawyer who specialises in these cases, has flown to Florida to fight an attempt to reimpose the death penalty on Krishna Maharaj, a British businessman convicted of shooting a father and son in a Miami hotel room in 1986. 

Housel, who had British nationality because he was born in Bermuda, was executed, as expected, in Georgia late on Tuesday, just over an hour after the US Supreme Court rejected his last legal appeal.

 Housel admitted killing a woman he met at a diner in 1985.

The Florida case is altogether different. Maharaj has protested his innocence from the start and lawyers say they have 7 different witnesses to show he was 25 miles away at the time.

 Supporters say the conduct of his original trial was "depraved".

 Maharaj, 62, was once a multi-millionaire with a string of racehorses, one of which won at Royal Ascot. Having arrived in London from Trinidad in 1960 he set up a fruit importing business. His brother, meanwhile, became attorney-general of Trinidad.

 By the time of his trial Maharaj's money had gone and he was unable to mount a proper defence to the murder charge.

 He is now said to be very ill. It is thought unlikely that he will ever be executed.

 The death penalty has been lifted once and although it could be reimposed after a retrial, the long appeals process would then restart and it would take an estimated 10 years before the sentence could be carried out.

In January Maharaj accused the British government of having done nothing to help him.

He told the BBC: "I went from living like a prince to existing like an animal. I am bitter that my government stood back without doing anything."

He said he was not asking for a pardon or clemency but simply demanding a fair trial. Asked why Britain had done so little, he replied: "The colour of my skin."

2 other Britons remain on death row in the US: Jackie Elliot in Texas and Kenny Richey in Ohio.