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For Immediate Release
October, 30 2014, 09:30am EDT
"I know Brit was Framed" Says New Witness, 28 Years After Miami Jailing
MIAMI/LONDON
An elderly Briton was framed for a murder for which he has spent 28 years in a Miami prison, according to new evidence detailed last night in an investigative BBC report.
Krishna 'Kris' Maharaj, now 75 years old, was handed a death sentence in 1987 in Miami after a seriously flawed trial for the murders of Derrick and Duane Moo Young. Since then, evidence collected by Mr Maharaj's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the international human rights organisation Reprieve, has shown that Mr Maharaj was far from the crime scene, and that the Moo Youngs were killed by members of Pablo Escobar's drug cartel. Mr Maharaj could finally be proven innocent after a full 'evidentiary hearing' takes place at the Miami District court on November 10th.
In a report broadcast last night, the BBC's Newsnight detailed how an ex-Miami police officer, now in prison on unrelated charges, has come forward to say he "knows" that Mr Maharaj was framed. A former convict who knew the police officer told the BBC: "He told me 'I know that guy, I was there that day... that guy's innocent [and] I know it because I heard police officers saying they were going to frame him.'"
In an affidavit recently submitted in the case, the ex-policeman says: "I visited the scene of the crime when it happened. I know that Mr Maharaj was framed because one of the officers in charge of investigating the double murder told me flat out that they were going to do this." He adds that he feels a "moral duty" to help exonerate Mr Maharaj, and will testify at the hearing.
A government informant also interviewed in last night's report detailed how a man known as Pablo Escobar's "most professional" hitman - Manuel Guillermo Zuluaga Salazar, or The Blade - had become "famous" in part for killing the Moo Youngs on Escobar's behalf.
The November hearing will examine evidence suggesting the murders were a Colombian cartel hit, witness perjury, and a police cover-up in relation to the 1986 murders. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Maharaj said his 28 years in prison "feels like 280 years to me", and talked of his hope that "the truth will be revealed at last." He urged everyone involved to "do the honourable thing, and administer justice."
Clive Stafford Smith, Mr Maharaj's lawyer and Reprieve director, said: "How many cartel members must testify that they did the crime before the US authorities finally accept that this 75 year old man is innocent? So long as they keep Kris Maharaj in prison, the authorities are really just defending Pablo Escobar for one of his many murders. Kris's innocence is obvious from the evidence detailed by Newsnight. The US legal system has simply got the wrong man - justice must be done, and Kris must be released."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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‘I Worked All Day and Can’t Feed My Family’: Mamdani Offers 9 Words More Terrifying Than Ronald Reagan’s
"It's not just that government can help, it's that government must help and our government will help."
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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday delivered a rebuttal to former Republican President Ronald Reagan's infamous quote about "the nine most terrifying words in the English language."
During an event announcing the location of a second city-run grocery store, Mamdani recalled Reagan claiming in 1986 that the scariest words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
"It's a good quote, but I disagree," Mamdani said. "I think nine more terrifying words are actually, 'I worked all day and can't feed my family.' We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table."
Mayor Zohran Mamdani mocks Ronald Reagan’s infamous quote.
“I can think of nine words more terrifying than ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help…’”
“I worked all day and can’t feed my family.” pic.twitter.com/ZteyFvA5Lg
— Jacobin (@jacobin) May 18, 2026
The mayor added that "when government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind time and again, it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today."
"It's not just that government can help," Mamdani emphasized, "it's that government must help and our government will help."
In an announcement, Mamdani revealed that the city is planning to open a 20,000-square-foot grocery store in the Peninusla development in the Bronx by the end of next year. This marks the second announced location for a city-run grocery store, following an earlier announcement for a planned store in East Harlem that is set to open by 2029.
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'He's Just Stealing Your Money': House Dems Launch Bid to Block $1.7 Billion Trump-MAGA 'Slush Fund'
"It's illegal and corrupt as hell," Congressman Don Beyer said of the president's self-dealing $1.77 billion IRS settlement. "We're fighting it in court."
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Ninety-three House Democrats on Monday launched a bid to block President Donald Trump's $1.77 billion taxpayer-funded settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, through which the president could reward supporters, including people convicted of seditious and violent felonies during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
The Democratic lawmakers joined an amicus brief filed in Trump v. IRS before Judge Kathleen Williams in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Their action followed the Trump administration's announcement of the creation of a so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" as part of an agreement to drop a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over a leak of the president's tax returns.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche described the fund as “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization" allegedly carried out by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Biden administration "to be heard and seek redress.”
However, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called the settlement "pure fraud and highway robbery," noting that Trump oversees the agency that agreed to settle with him.
"No president can concoct a fake case for $10 billion in damages against the government so he can be plaintiff and defendant and then ‘settle’ his bogus case against himself as a judge," Raskin said.
"This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election-stealing schemes," he added.
Trump's slush fund would give nearly $2 BILLION in taxpayer dollars to his supporters, including violent criminals.He's just stealing your money.There's no transparency, we won't know who gets paid, or how much.It's illegal and corrupt as hell. We're fighting it in court.
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— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) May 18, 2026 at 10:41 AM
The Democratic lawmakers' amicus filing seeks to block the settlement, which could use taxpayer funds to compensate pro-Trump figures like the nearly 1,600 Capitol insurrection defendants charged or convicted of crimes connected to the Capitol attack, including seditious conspiracy, assault on law enforcement officers with dangerous weapons, and other felonies.
“Trump suing the IRS was never about justice, it’s another self-enrichment scheme on the backs of hard-working taxpayers," House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said Monday.
“Now, with the court poised to weigh in only days from now, Trump is scrambling to cut a backroom deal and solidify his position as the judge, jury, and executioner," Neal added. "Reporting detailing Trump’s interest in a billion-dollar slush fund for the J6 criminals and permanent immunity from any further IRS scrutiny only deepens the stench of corruption."
Matt Platkin and Norm Eisen, lawyers representing the Democrats, said Monday: “It's against the law for the president to in effect sue himself—and then settle for a huge sum. The court has the power to put a stop to these shenanigans and should do so."
Trump was accused of rewarding political violence when he granted blanket pardons to the January 6 insurrectionists on his first day back in the White House. According to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, dozens of pardoned Capitol attackers have since been charged or convicted of serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents.
The president and other MAGA figures have accused the Biden administration of "weaponizing" the DOJ against Trump and his supporters. Meanwhile, Trump has targeted political opponents; federal officials involved in investigating and prosecuting him for alleged election interference and mishandling classified documents; pro-Palestine activists; universities and corporations resisting his anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion crusade; journalists; civil society groups; and others.
Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts joined Democratic lawmakers in condemning Trump's settlement.
“Donald Trump and his compromised Department of Justice have created a slush fund to make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies,” Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman said in a statement. “This scheme amounts to the creation of a January 6 payment fund.”
I say without hyperbole that this is the most brazenly corrupt action in US Presidential history. That it does not immediately lead to impeachment is a dangerous sign of how far the rule of law has declined.
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— Ryan Enos (@ryanenos.bsky.social) May 18, 2026 at 10:28 AM
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