American William Labrador walked out of a British Virgin Islands prison a free man on Monday following a ruling by Britain's Privy Council which quashed his murder conviction and ordered his release.

"I am overjoyed. I think justice has finally been done in this case," said local lawyer Richard Hector who defended Labrador at his six week trial in 2001. "I have never said this before of any client, but I am truly of the view that this man was innocent of the crime."

Mr. Labrador had been convicted in the killing of Lois McMillen, a 34-year-old artist from Connecticut, in the British Virgin Islands.

The Privy Council ruled that the evidence of a key prosecution witness, a prison informant, was too unreliable to convict Mr. Labrador.

And it also upheld the acquittal of another American, Alexander Benedetto.

Mr. Hector defended Mr. Labrador at his original trial which ended with a conviction and a sentence of life in prison.

Labrador had been originally charged with three other Americans, but the trial judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence for the case to proceed against Mr. Benedetto, a 37-year-old New Yorker, Michael Spicer, 39, of Virginia and Evan George, 25, of Washington D.C.

The Privy Council decision on Monday also quashed an order by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal that Benedetto should be tried again.

"Their judgment was inexplicable, " said Mr. Hector of the Court of Appeal.

Mr. Benedetto urged the case to be retried, when news of the ruling came, according to Associated Press.

"If the law protects the guilty, then certainly it must come to the rescue of the innocent. I hope they reopen the case so justice comes for poor Lois as well," he said.

Mr. Hector agreed, saying that the Police had a number of other leads that they did not pursue in their investigation.

Miss McMillen was on holiday in Tortola when she drowned in January, 2000.

The Privy Council is the last court of appeal for British colonies and many former colonies.

Labrador was convicted of murder largely on the testimony of Jeffrey Plante, a 61-year-old Texan who said Labrador confessed to the killing while the two men shared a jail cell on Tortola.

The evidence was contested by his lawyers who argued that Plante, who has a long history of fraud and theft offences, was unreliable.

"In light of what is now known about Plante and all the defects that have been revealed about the content of his evidence .... it would be wholly contrary to the interests of justice for Labrador to have to face a new trial based, as it would have to be, wholly on Plante's evidence," the judges said in their unanimous opinion.

"The judgment is extremely illuminating and should be read by everybody who is interested in these matters," said Mr. Hector, adding the ruling was "highly unusual" because it did not order that his client be retried.

"The Privy Council could have quashed the conviction of my client and ordered a retrial. But in this case there is no retrial because there was no case."

And the trial itself, based entirely on the evidence of a career criminal, was a first for him.

"I haven't come across a case in which there was evidence of this sort before. He was not only a con man who was serving a 45-year-jail sentence, but had done this same thing before - that is give evidence that a fellow told him he committed a crime five years before. He also was married ten times."

The Privy Council decision made "delightful reading" because it supported everything he had said at the original trial, Mr. Hector said.