Freed Briton denies killing his wife

A British engineer who was convicted of murdering his wife in Bangkok has accused Thai police of persecuting him because he refused to pay them.

Karl Maxwell-Smith, 62, said after his arrival at Heathrow airport on a flight from Bangkok yesterday that he was determined to clear his name.

He was jailed for 100 years in 1987 for murdering his Thai wife, who fell to her death from a 10th floor balcony in Bangkok. He was released after Queen Sirikit granted him a royal pardon as part of an amnesty for 25,000 prisoners earlier this month.

Mr Maxwell-Smith said yesterday: 'Here we are lads, an innocent man committed to five years in prison, life imprisonment for murder that he didn't do, because he wouldn't pay the police money.'

Mr Maxwell-Smith, a former Scots Guards sergeant who has lived abroad for some time, had emerged to greet the cameras and waiting journalists looking none the worse for his imprisonment, his arm around his 31-year-old son from a former marriage and holding aloft his British passport.

He said: 'The most important thing I have in my mind is to clear my name of this stigma.

'I did not murder, I was persecuted by the Thai police because I wouldn't pay them money.'

Earlier, Mr Maxwell-Smith's son, also called Karl, said his father's captivity had been 'five years of hell' for the family.