Mexico, Washington, others press Texas to suspend execution

Jul 5, 2011, 21:06 GMT

Mexico City - Mexico asked the governor of the US state of Texas, Rick Perry, to suspend the execution of a Mexican citizen that is scheduled for Thursday, adding more international pressure on the US state to act.

Mexico's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it had sent the governor letters in support of a similar request by the defence lawyers for Humberto Leal Garcia, who was sentenced to death for raping and killing a teenager in 1994.

The US federal government last week also asked Perry to delay the execution and has filed a supportive brief at the US Supreme Court asking it to intervene.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the governments of countries including Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador and Switzerland sent similar letters, the Mexican Foreign Ministry noted.

At issue is whether Leal Garcia and a group of 51 other Mexicans have been sentenced to die without respecting their right to be assisted by their consulates during the trial. Under the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations, arrested suspects from foreign countries are supposed to have access to their own consulates for legal assistance.

In 2008, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that five Mexican citizens awaiting execution in the US, including Leal Garcia, should not be executed pending an interpretation of a 2004 ICJ ruling on the cases.

Former president George W Bush, and now the administration of President Barack Obama, have both tried to intervene in such death penalty cases.

Bush's 2005 order to the state of Texas to reopen one of the cases, that of Medellin Rojas, was rebuffed in 2008 by the US Supreme Court, which ruled that the US president had no authority to intervene in state judicial powers, under a long-standing division of power in the federalist system. Texas executed Rojas in 2008.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland Tuesday said the federal government had gotten involved because it is concerned about reciprocity from other countries.

'The concern is that if we don't set a good example here and allow foreign governments to visit their citizens who are detained or arrested ... that we could face a reciprocal denial of access for our consular officials when American citizens find themselves arrested or detained overseas,' she said.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry and the Mexican embassy also requested a hearing before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

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