Krishna Maharaj, 75, has been in prison for 27 years for his conviction in the slaying of father and son Derrick and Duane Moo Young in a gruesome execution at a downtown Miami hotel.
Florida Circuit Judge William Thomas was not persuaded by new evidence presented during a three-day hearing in November by lawyers for Maharaj, a once-wealthy businessman who split time between Britain and Florida and claims he is innocent.
The "evidence falls dramatically short of establishing that the murders were committed by anybody other than Mr. Maharaj," Thomas said in court, declining to grant a retrial.
Maharaj's lawyers had summoned two former U.S. government informants, members of Escobar's Medellin cartel and others to testify that the Moo Youngs were money launderers who stole from the drug lord, who was killed in a shootout with Colombian police in 1993.
An American pilot who flew cocaine shipments for the cartel said he heard Escobar order the killings and told prosecutors: "You got the wrong guy."
"I'm totally shell-shocked by the idea that after everything we presented he could deny a retrial," said Clive Stafford Smith, Maharaj's lawyer and the founder and director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy group.
He said Maharaj would appeal the decision.
Prosecutors argued the defense's new evidence was only hearsay and unproven allegations. Maharaj's fingerprints were found in the hotel room where the killings took place and prosecutors said Maharaj accused Derrick Moo Young, a former business partner, of cheating him out of money.
