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The South Florida Reception Center, not far west of Miami, sounds like it might be something to do with the Sunshine State’s tourist department.

It’s not. It’s a prison. If you saw a prison like it in a Hollywood film, you might wonder if the scenery unit had somewhat over-egged the bleakness for dramatic effect.

For the last few years of Krishna “Kris” Maharaj’s three decades behind bars, this place has been home.

In 1987, he was convicted of the murder of businessmen Duane and Derrick Moo Young in a Miami hotel and sentenced to death.

In 2002, due to irregularities in his original trial, the sentence became life behind bars; in April this year it was announced a federal judge would consider new evidence the crimes were committed by Pablo Escobar ’s Medellin cocaine cartel later this summer.

(Image: Justin Sutcliffe)

Having followed his case for a while now on Radio 5 Live, we’d finally got permission from the Florida Department of Corrections for the first UK interview with him since the break through.

This required an awful lot of form-filling. And here we were, being stared at blankly by the woman in the security hut, who wasn’t expecting us, had no paperwork, and had never heard of the BBC.

We called the man from the Department of Corrections who’d authorised it all. No answer. In a fury I leapt in the car and bashed his office address into the satnav. It was 486 miles away.

In some desperation we called Clive Stafford Smith, the British lawyer who’s been trying to get Kris freed for most of his time inside. He’d heard it all before.

(Image: Press Association) (Image: Press Association)

“The warden will have the paperwork,” said Clive wearily. “He’ll have forgotten to tell anyone. Go in, be very British, and it will get sorted.”

A mere three hours after we arrived, doors, gates and screens finally started opening for us. And I remembered to start worrying again, about what on earth to ask a man who’d been banged up for so long for a heinous crime very few people now believe he committed.

I noticed a sign forbidding visitors to hold hands with prisoners below the table between them. Holding hands on the table is OK. One kiss and one hug are permissible on greeting, and the same on goodbye. That’s your lot.

These are rules Kris’s wife Marita has had to abide by ever since the day he was arrested in 1986. She never went back to their London home.

She’s visited him every week for 31 years.

I asked the smart young guard screening our equipment if he knew Kris. “Yes,” he said. “A grumpy old fart.”

(Image: BBC) (Image: BBC)

Seeing my scowl he smiled and added, “He’s OK, nice enough guy. But always telling people he used to have so much money and that he was a somebody.

"Man, I got news for you. Once you’re in that prison uniform you’re nobody. You’re property of the state.”

Gingerly we stepped out into the yard to walk towards Kris’s block. His wing is for the over-60s. Old Haitians and Cubans stared at my producer and I without much interest.

We smiled politely back in a British kind of way. And suddenly there was our man, coming slowly towards us with his walking frame.

He managed a smile; we shook hands, and were led into a meeting room to talk.

“I went from living like a prince to existing like an animal,” he says simply, of his years in prison. He was 17 years on death row in another place.

He looks back on that with something, bizarrely, approximating fondness, particularly his closeness to quadruple murderer William ‘Tommy’ Ziegler.

“At least I had my own cell then, a television, and I could read alone. I was friends with the man in the next cell. He taught me the rules of American football. And when I hurt my arm he wrote my letters to my wife for me.

(Image: ITV)

(Image: We Love TV)

“Now though, this is terrible. There are 92 of us in two dorms; 46 of us in one room. There is one prisoner three feet from me one side, and three feet the other.

"There’s a television but I never watch it because the Haitians and Cubans are always fighting over what to watch.”

Prisoners are usually allowed out for an hour or so, twice a day.

“Time passes slowly,” he says.

I nod, quite unable to think of anything useful to say.

Kris can remember his old life. He did well in business and enjoyed his money, travelling and eating in the best places.

He owned many racehorses. One of them beat the Queen’s horse at Ascot. He says she took it well.

But Kris can’t bear to reflect on the time when he was last free, before he was arrested at a Denny’s restaurant near Miami airport in 1986.

“I just don’t like to think about it.”

His wife Marita, when I speak to her later, has got more clarity on that moment than she would like:

“One night we went for dinner. When I came out of that restaurant my life was completely changed. It was like night and day. I lost my husband and my life was completely upside down.”

“My wife,” as Kris puts it, “is the heroine of this tragedy.”

(Image: Justin Sutcliffe)

(Image: Reuters)

He lives for her weekly visits. “It’s a moment of joy after a week of hell. Deep down in my heart, I thought she will leave,” he says. “When I told a lawyer that Marita is one in a million, he said, ‘Kris, Marita is one in ten million. Normally the wife leaves in the first five years.’”

Marita, with tears streaming down her cheeks, says, “He once told me to go back to England. He said, ‘Marita don’t stay’. I told him, ‘I came here with you; I come home with you. I will do whatever is necessary for you. Even if I lose everything I won’t leave you alone.”

And she’s been true to her word.

I appreciate we’ve been looking at this case through the prism of Kris’s defence lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, and that might colour our views.

But I’d challenge anyone to read into Kris’s case and not reach the conclusion that he’s almost certainly innocent. And a re-trial, at the very least, might not be the worst idea. But getting a whole state’s judicial system to confront its shortcomings is no easy task.

In this case it’s taken 30 years, and counting.

Later this year a federal court will look at it all again. “I never like to use the word impossible,” says Kris, “but it would be highly improbable for the Federal court not to vindicate me or order a new trial. It is blatantly obvious that I was framed.”

His hope springs eternal. It has to.

“Believe you me, I will get out, by the grace of God. Believe you me; I will be vindicated. I’m 100 per cent certain.”

After we’ve shaken hands I walk away across the yard watching the planes overhead on their approach to Miami International wondering how often he’s pondered if one day one of those planes really will fly him home.

Hear the full interview on BBC Radio 5 live Daily with Adrian Chiles on Tuesday at 10am

Who is Krishna Maharaj?

A Florida court sentenced South London self-made millionaire businessman Krishna Maharaj, now 78, to death in 1986 for murdering Jamaican father and son Duane and Derrick Moo Young in a Miami hotel.

He has always maintained his innocence - and his case was taken on by human rights organisation Reprieve.

Its director Clive Stafford Smith, Maharaj’s lawyer, says: “I’ve never been more certain someone is innocent.

"It’s a total scandal and miscarriage of justice.”

Maharaj had six alibi witnesses, who each confirmed he was 30 miles away at the time, yet none were asked to testify at his trial and his lawyer presented no defence whatsoever.

This was among the reasons the death sentence was overturned in 1997.

Now Mr Stafford Smith has new evidence pointing to the Medellin drug cartel as the real culprits, including admissions by former cartel members they were responsible for the murders, and admissions by former Miami police officers that they framed Maharaj and had a deal to help cover up Colombian cartel murders.