Tooting murder case referred after confession

Three men jailed for life for murder are to have their cases sent to the Court of Appeal after another man admitted wielding the murder weapon.

Prabaskaran Kannan was stabbed to death in Tooting, south London, in 2007.

Aziz Miah, Asif Kumbay and Kirush Nanthakumar were jailed in 2008 but Vabeesan Sivarajah, who was convicted with them, has said he held the knife.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission has now referred the case to the Court of Appeal.

Miah, of Croydon, south London, and Kumbay, of Norwood, south London, were given a minimum tariff of 17 years.

Wielded the knife

Nanthakumar, of Croydon, was jailed for a minimum term of 14 years.

Sivarajah, of Streatham, south London, was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years.

The prosecution case was that all the defendants had acted together in a joint enterprise to cause the death.

They lost an appeal against their convictions in 2009.

Sivarajah has since said he alone wielded the knife and repeatedly stabbed 28-year-old Mr Kannan.

A spokesman for the Criminal Cases Review Commission said: "Having reviewed the case in detail, the commission has decided to refer the murder convictions to the Court of Appeal because it believes there is a real possibility that the court will now consider the convictions unsafe and quash them.

"The referral is made on the basis of new evidence relating to who inflicted the fatal wounds on the victim and which, if it had been available at trial, might have led the jury to come to different verdicts."