MEXICO CITY, July 8: Outrage mounted on Friday over a Mexican man who had been denied his consular rights and was then executed in the US state of Texas for raping and murdering a teenage girl in 1994.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was “disappointed” that Texas went ahead with the execution on Thursday of Humberto Leal Garcia, 38, while the United Nations warned that international law was violated and Mexico's government vented its anger.
Leal was put to death at 6:21 pm (2321 GMT) on Thursday in the Huntsville, Texas prison execution chamber for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl.
In a rare intervention, the US government's top lawyer urged the US Supreme Court to spare Leal's life, saying his execution would cause “irreparable harm” to US interests.
But the top Court denied the request for a stay of execution in a 5-4 decision just over an hour before Leal was set to be executed.
“US compliance with Vienna convention terms is absolutely critical to ensuring our own consular access and our own ability to protect Americans detained abroad,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday.
“If we don't protect the rights of non-Americans in the United States, we seriously risk reciprocal lack of access to our own citizens overseas. This is why the secretary is concerned,” she said.
Leal, who suffered from brain damage, had maintained his innocence and his defence team has argued that he was convicted with flawed evidence.
His lawyers said the murdered girl was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and died accidentally after falling on a rock when Leal tried to help her after she was raped at a party.
Leal was one of at least 51 Mexicans on death row in the United States who were not informed after their arrests that they could get legal help from Mexican consular officials, a violation of the Vienna Convention.
The Mexican government and Leal's family was particularly incensed.
“The Texan authorities never informed our citizen of his rights to contact consular representatives” at the time of his arrest, Mexico's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Mexico said it rejected Leal's execution “in the most energetic terms,” carried out “in clear violation of a verdict by the International Court of
Justice.” In 2004 the court called for the executions of the 51 Mexicans, including Leal, to be suspended because US authorities had failed to respect their consular rights.
BREACH OF LAW: “The execution of Mr Leal Garcia places the US in breach of international law,” said UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Friday in Geneva.
“What the state of Texas has done in this case is imputable in law to the US and engages the United States' international responsibility,” she added.—AFP