Queensland Police will hand over all the evidence they have against a man convicted of his wife's manslaughter on their honeymoon, after receiving a new assurance he won't face the death penalty in Alabama.
Queensland Attorney-General Cameron Dick says he's satisfied with a fresh promise from Alabama authorities that Gabe Watson won't end up on death row in his home state.
Watson is currently serving an 18-month prison term in a Queensland jail, after pleading guilty to his new wife Tina's manslaughter during a scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef in 2003.
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He's due for release in November and is likely to be deported back to the US, where Alabama authorities hope to try him for her murder.
Mr Dick had refused to provide further assistance to Alabama authorities until he had an iron-clad guarantee they would not seek the death penalty for Watson.
He said Queensland police would now release all the evidence to Alabama Attorney-General Troy King, following the latest assurance.
"He's provided a further undertaking and it now seems clear, on the advice I've received, that the undertaking is satisfactory which is why we will now provide the balance of the evidence to Alabama," Mr Dick told the ABC.
But Bond University criminologist Professor Paul Wilson said he had some concerns about the wording of the assurance.
"What I'm concerned (about), with the wording of the promise he will not be subject to the death penalty, I wonder whether that leaves some space open for him to be charged federally or in another state," he told the ABC.
