WASHINGTON — A convicted triple murderer in a high-profile death row case had his execution date thrown out Wednesday when the governor of Ohio commuted his sentence to life in prison due to unanswered questions in the case.

The move by Governor Ted Strickland comes two weeks after a parole board recommended 46-year-old Kevin Keith's trip to the death chamber should not be delayed, despite him maintaining his innocence for the 1994 murder of three people, including a four-year-old child.

Several dozen former judges, lawyers and prosecutors believe he may have been wrongly convicted and had called on Strickland to halt his execution.

Keith faced execution by lethal injection on September 15, but the governor said in a statement that the original conviction "relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised."

"I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling," said the governor, although he added that after "a thorough review of the information and evidence... it is far more likely that Mr Keith committed these murders than it is likely that he did not."

Saying he had decided to commute Keith's sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Strickland also said that if "further evidence justify my doing so, I am prepared to review this matter again for possible further action."

Keith's defenders, an unusual combination of former judges and prosecutors as well as anti-death penalty campaigners, former prison directors and lawmakers, have insisted he was convicted on the basis of an unreliable eyewitness identification.

Some 20,000 people have also signed two petitions calling on Ohio's parole board and Strickland to grant clemency.

His defenders point out the surviving adult victim identified Keith after telling at least four witnesses he could not see the shooter's face.

They also allege that Keith was identified in a "highly suggestive" photo lineup in which the photograph of his face was larger than the others presented to the witness for examination.

And they have demanded courts hear new evidence about an alternative suspect they say told a police informant he was paid to carry out the crime.

"We applaud Governor Strickland for commuting Kevin Keith's sentence and agree with the governor that there are 'real and unanswered questions surrounding the murders,'" said his attorneys following the governor's decision.

"Keith remains incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, and that crime remains unsolved," they said, adding that "commutation to a life sentence does not lessen the need for justice to prevail," insisting their appeals process on his behalf will continue.
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