Millionaire Nicholas Hoogstraten today won his appeal over a £5 million claim by the family of the man he was jailed for killing.

Three appeal judges overturned High Court rulings that resulted in Mr Hoogstraten being fined £1 million and having assets frozen and seized.

Brighton slum landlord Mohammed Raja had been suing Mr Hoogstraten, a former associate, over business deals when he was shot dead by two men identified at the Old Bailey trial as Mr Hoogstraten's henchmen.

Mr Hoogstraten, a 59-year-old property tycoon, was sentenced to ten years in 2002 for manslaughter but the conviction was set aside by the criminal Court of Appeal last year.

The family of Mr Raja continued with the civil action and High Court judge Mr Justice Peter Smith imposed severe penalties on Mr Hoogstraten after he failed to comply with court orders to disclose his assets.

His assets were frozen worldwide, fines were imposed and his property was sequestrated.

After today's hearing the Raja family said it would continue its legal fight to recover the £5 million.

Mr Hoogstraten vowed to continue his counter-claim. He said: "How is it going to go on? They haven't got a bean."

Court costs are to be decided later but Mr Hoogstraten put his costs at just under £2 million. He said he felt "fine" about today's ruling, adding: "I've felt fine for the last two or three years. I just didn't believe what was happening."

Mr Raja's son, Amjad, said: "This is not the end. We are definitely going to be fighting on, otherwise our father would have died in vain.

"We had a judgment before in our favour and we will get a judgment in the future in our favour.

"It is a very expensive exercise to continue with but that's our main aim - to seek justice and hope for the best that the court does grant us the justice we are seeking.

"It has had a devastating impact upon our family. There's no closure. It seems like there's no ending in sight but obviously we hope to continue as long as it takes. We are more resolute now than ever."

A jubilant Mr Hoogstraten, who was in court for his victory, issued a triumphant statement condemning the "spurious" action brought against him and the "vindictive" orders of the court.

It said: "The decisions of the Court of Appeal today open the door for Mr Hoogstraten to recover his very substantial costs, damages and compensation from the Raja family, the sequestrators and others in a series of legal actions to be commenced."

When he won his battle to have his manslaughter conviction set aside, Mr Hoogstraten said he would get all his money back.

His personal fortune was once estimated at £500 million in art, antiques and property.

But when he got out of jail in December last year after serving 11 months of his ten-year prison sentence he put his own wealth at £95 million, of which £30 million had been seized by sequestrators and the rest frozen by the High Court.

His first words after being cleared of manslaughter were a pledge "to sue just about everybody".

The man who is building his own palace in Framfield, near Uckfield, had first been accused of murdering Mr Raja in July 1999 but was cleared by a jury which then found him guilty of manslaughter.

He won a retrial in 2002 because of a "flawed" direction to the jury and then went on to have the case against him thrown out completely.

He had been accused of hiring two hitmen, David Croke and Robert Knapp, to murder Mr Raja, 62, on his doorstep with a sawn-off shotgun. They are serving life sentences for the murder.