Every Christmas Day, devoted Marita Maharaj sets a place at the table for her husband Kris.
She has carried out the ritual for years, clinging to the hope that he will finally be released from jail for a double murder he did not commit.
But Marita is still waiting at her home in Florida. Kris, now 81, has spent 33 years in jail there – the first 15 on Death Row – after becoming unwittingly embroiled in the violent world of drug lord Pablo Escobar.
He was only spared the electric chair thanks to British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith – founder of the charity Reprieve.
The organisation, which this year celebrates its 20th birthday, has saved over 400 people like Kris from the death penalty across the globe.
It has also helped secure the release of more than 80 detainees from the notorious US detention camp Guantanamo Bay.
But Clive, 60, and his team are still battling to free Kris, who was taken off Death Row and handed a life jail term – after a flaw with his original sentencing was uncovered in 2002.
Intriguingly, Clive’s team have linked the gun killings to Colombian cocaine baron Escobar.
Kris, of Peckham, South East London, had moved to the US and was running a fruit imports operation in Miami. He was arrested after father and son Derrick and Duane Moo Young were shot dead.
Kris was held after a man said he had witnessed him killing the Jamaican-Chinese pair.
But Kris maintained he was set up. It was at the height of Miami’s cocaine wars and Clive travelled to Escobar’s home city of Medellin in search of information. He found six witnesses who testified that cartel leader Escobar ordered the killings because the Moo Youngs were siphoning off drugs money.
Jorge Maya – who said he had been an enforcer for the cartel – said: “Pablo Escobar was very angry with them. Various people from Medellin were talking about the fact the Moo Youngs owed money.”
Clive said: “It’s not easy to get people to testify – they had nothing to gain from this.
“The federal magistrates last year decided Kris was innocent and no reasonable jury could convict him.
“But under American law, that is not enough to set someone free.
“The US Supreme Court has held that you can have a fair trial that reaches the wrong result.
“We are still fighting that. Kris has done 33 years for a crime he patently didn’t commit. It’s awful.
“He is 81, suffers from diabetes and all sorts of illnesses, he is in a dormitory with 30 other people – he’s number one on the list of people who would die from Covid-19.
“I don’t think you should avoid being emotionally attached to people you represent.
"Of course I’m emotionally attached. I really like Kris and Marita and feel for them. It’s horrendous to think of poor old Marita, who is 80, sitting in her cottage by herself.”
Marita lives in Florida to be near Kris and has visited him once a week until recently. Clive adds: “She lays Kris a place every Christmas Day in the hope he’ll walk through the door. You have to remain optimistic. But why don’t they just let him go?”
To be freed, Kris, who has been crippled by a bacterial infection, must go through an appeal. But that is on hold, because of the pandemic. He is in isolation after Covid-19 hit his dorm.
Kris’s case throws up typical frustrations and challenges Clive faces in his work with Reprieve. There have been death threats from criminal networks.
But he says he fears western governments more. He says US prosecutors once threatened him with 40 years in prison amid bizarre claims he tried to smuggle swimming trunks into Guantanamo Bay for detainee Shaker Aamer.
Shaker, a Saudi living in the UK, was held in the camp for 13 years without charge amid claims he had led a unit of fighters in Afghanistan.
Clive went on a seven-day hunger strike to demand his release.
Shaker was finally freed in 2015. Clive said: “I’ve had death threats but compared to death threats my clients have had from governments who want to kill them, what I face is nothing.
“In some ways, some threats I take most seriously and find most intimidating have come from governments like the US, who have a lot of power.
“I was threatened with 40 years for allegedly smuggling Speedos into Guantanamo, which I clearly didn’t do.
“And quite why anyone would care is beyond me. I’ve been to Guantanamo 39 times. It’s an irony free zone.
“As you get there, a big sign says, ‘Honour bound to defend freedom’. Then you realise you’re in Cuba and these people have been locked up without a trial. It’s just deranged.”
Like many prisoners who lan-guished in Guantanamo, Shaker, now 53, was handed to the US by bounty hunters in Afghanistan in 2001.
After the 9/11 attacks masterminded by al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden, the US paid huge sums for the capture of terrorists.
Notorious al-Qaeda courier Hassan Ghul was on the list. Bounty hunters thought they had him in 2002.
They hadn’t. In error, innocent Pakistani taxi driver Ahmed Rabbani was torn from his pregnant wife and taken to a Kabul prison to be tortured.
The real Hassan Ghul was captured in 2004. He was released in 2007 before being killed by a drone in 2012.
Incredibly, Ahmed, 50, has been kept in Guantanamo for 17 years despite never being convicted. Clive said: “I was talking to his son the other day. He is 17 and has never met his dad, never touched his dad.
“Ahmed has been on hunger strike for six years, they force feed him every day in excruciatingly painful ways.
“But he cooks for the other men as he was a cook before he was a taxi driver. He just tries to make something of the miserable place he’s in but I can’t say he’s optimistic.”
Clive also disputes a US file of terrorist targets, claiming no evidence against many of them. Reprieve claims it includes community leaders, journalists and peace activists.
Clive said: “It’s the death penalty without trial. I think they have killed 56 children trying to get bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
“The idea that it makes the world a safer place is just silly. What that does is inflame entire societies against us.”
