Sarandon in mercy plea for Death Row Scot

Susan Sarandon has called for the retrial of a Scottish man awaiting execution in America.

Thirty-eight-year old Edinburgh man Kenny Richey was convicted of an arson attack that killed a three-year-old girl in Ohio.

The actress made the appeal after being approached by a group campaigning to free Richey while she was appearing in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with her husband Tim Robbins.

Sarandon, who starred in anti-capital punishment film Dead Man Walking, said new evidence uncovered by the condemned man's defence created fresh doubts about Richey's conviction.

In a statement, she said: "I want to add my voice to the growing campaign to have the whole case re-examined.

"Individuals and organisations as diverse as his Holiness the Pope, the European Parliament, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Amnesty International believe that there is such a 'reasonable doubt' over the conviction that there should at the very least, be a retrial.

"For the family of the victim of this crime - I have nothing but the deepest sympathy. I call on the authorities in Ohio to re-examine the evidence, listen to the voices around the world and look again at the detail of the case."

Richey, who has always protested his innocence, left Scotland in 1981 to start a new life in America.

Weeks before a return visit to the UK, he was arrested and sentenced to death in 1987 for the murder of toddler Cynthia Collins and has been awaiting execution ever since.

Three years ago, Pope John Paul wrote to the Governor of Mansfield Correctional Unit in Ohio asking that Richey be saved from execution.