Watch Clive Stafford Smith on BBC Newsnight

Clive Stafford Smith appears in this Newsnight feature on the unsound conviction of Krishna Maharaj.  

British businessman Krishna Maharaj was jailed in 1987 for a double murder he vehemently denies and was almost certainly carried out by the Medellín drug cartel. 

Krishna Maharaj has five alibi witnesses all of whom place him more than 30 miles away at the time of the murder, but none of whom were called to testify at his trial. The original trial judge was led away in handcuffs for taking bribes in another case, and the new judge ordered the death penalty to be drawn up even before a verdict of guilty had been given.  The death sentence was quashed in 2002 but Maharaj was resentenced to life imprisonment.

This piece reveals more about the Colombian cartel and the key prosecution witness who dramatically changed his testimony and then received a surprisingly light sentence for his own offences.  Clive Stafford Smith plans to pursue this through the Florida courts and if necessary the Supreme Court.

With thanks to Tim Samuels and Newsnight.