KRIS MAHARAJ, a British citizen who spent 38 years in a Florida prison despite a judge ruling he had proven his innocence, has died at the age of 85.
Maharaj, convicted in 1986 for the murders of Derrick and Duane Moo Young, passed away in a prison hospital after years of battling against what he and his supporters described as a gross miscarriage of justice.
"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," his wife, Marita Maharaj, told Sky News.
Maharaj was born in Trinidad and moved to England in 1960. Before his arrest, he was a wealthy businessman, owning racehorses and Rolls-Royces. He travelled to Florida with his wife to purchase a retirement property but was arrested in a restaurant and, within months, convicted of murdering his two business associates.
Maharaj's death sentence was overturned in 2002, largely due to the efforts of the human rights organisation Reprieve, and was commuted to life imprisonment.
Despite this, he remained in prison even after a 2019 ruling by a judge that found he had proven his innocence. The US Court of Appeals, however, ruled that the evidence of his innocence was insufficient to secure his release.
Clive Stafford Smith, Maharaj’s lawyer and founder of Reprieve, described the immense toll the case took on Marita.
"It is devastating for her," he said, noting that she was a "unique spouse" who stood by her husband for 38 years. "We will certainly fulfill her wish and his, that is to continue to exonerate him for this crime that he patently did not commit."
Stafford Smith recounted Maharaj’s consistent claims of innocence, stressing that he was nowhere near the crime scene at the Dupont Plaza Hotel when the murders occurred. His wife corroborated this, stating she was with him at the time of the killings.
Maharaj's case has often been compared to a plotline from the Netflix series Narcos. The Medellin drug cartel, led by Pablo Escobar, later admitted responsibility for the murders. Documents revealed the victims were money launderers for Escobar's cartel and were killed after stealing from the drug kingpin.
In 2014, Escobar’s chief assassin, Jhon Jairo Velasquez Vasquez, publicly stated that Maharaj had been framed for the murders, which were actually carried out by Escobar's hitmen.
Despite this revelation and the 2019 ruling by federal magistrate judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes that no reasonable juror could convict Maharaj, his conviction was upheld by the US Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court declined to review his case.
Maharaj’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, has vowed to continue fighting to clear his client's name posthumously.
"Kris Maharaj will come home – as that's his and Marita's wish, so we will have a funeral in Bridport in due course. It is very sad: 13808 days of suffering over with his death. We are going to have to bring Kris Maharaj's body back for burial in Dorset – working on that now," he said on X.
