Justice Severed

Another potential player, Jaime Mejías, a Colombian importer/exporter from Medellín who rented room 1214, across the hall from 1215, was linked to Hosein, documents show. "I questioned him," Burhmaster retorts, explaining how he chatted with Mejías from the doorway to his suite. Burhmaster says that he peered inside the room without ever entering and that "everything seemed fine." Mejías was ruled out as a suspect, according to Burhmaster, because he "seemed legit." Burhmaster never verified Mejías' alibi, nor did he take his fingerprints or ask him to explain the bloodstain on the door frame of his room.

Immediately following the murders, after occupying an office on the sixth floor of the DuPont Plaza for more than seven years, Mejías disappeared. He was never seen again.

Conservative British Member of Parliament Peter Bottomley gave up his seat at Princess Diana's 1997 funeral in Westminster Abbey to appear before a Florida appeals court on behalf of Krishna Maharaj.

He is one of about 300 British politicians who have since signed a petition calling for a retrial of the Londoner, a list that includes some high-ranking members of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's cabinet.

Despite the support, in 2004, Miami magistrate Judge William C. Turnoff rejected Maharaj's request, stating that "newly discovered evidence which goes only to guilt or innocence is insufficient to warrant relief." Last year, after the Florida Supreme Court refused to hear his case, Maharaj ran out of legal options.

Marita, Maharaj's Portuguese-born wife, remains in Florida, away from European family and friends, steadfast in her devotion. For the 15 years her husband was on death row, she regularly made the 700-mile roundtrip to the prison in Starke, northeast of Gainesville. Today, she lives in Tamarac. "I got married to Kris for life; I married him because I love him. And I will be here as long as he needs me... as long as it takes to get him out of this."

Clemency is her husband's only hope. At the mere mention of the hearing, which isn't likely to be held until 2008, Marita chuckles heartily: "I've already started packing. Believe it or not, I started boxing everything up... ready for when Kris comes home... " The rich laughter is soon replaced by a weary sigh. "I laugh, yes, but this is not a joke. We have been through hell. I just want for us to go home, to London, to live out the rest of our days quietly."

Some of Britain's top legal minds are rallying to help. In August, former British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote to Crist: "The case concerns serious acts of double murder and there is a real question whether they were committed by Mr. Maharaj." A second former British attorney general, Sir Nicholas Lyell, brands the case "a serious miscarriage of justice."

"I'm away from my wife and my family...," the ailing 68-year-old Maharaj mused during a BBC interview in 2004, "for something that I didn't do and I knew nothing about. This is a nightmare. It has to end."