Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has called on the US to abide by an International Court of Justice ruling and stay the execution of a Mexican prisoner in Texas sheduled to take place on Tuesday.
Jose Medellin faces death by lethal injection for his part in the gang rape, beating and strangling of two teenage girls 15 years ago.
The International Court of Justice has said Medellin and about 50 other Mexicans on death row in the US should have new hearings to determine whether the Vienna Conventions were violated during their arrests.
Medellin’s lawyers say he was denied access to Mexican consular officals during his arrest, a key part of the conventions.
He is the first among the 50 who is set to be executed.
“All decisions and orders of the International Court of Justice must be respected by states,” Ban was quoted as saying by Mexican television.
“The United States should take every step to make sure the execution does not take place.”
The US embassy in Mexico has warned of potential protests there if the execution takes place.
Jorge Montano, a former Mexican ambassador to the US, told Al Jazeera that the US should respect international law.
“The biggest lesson once again for the rest of the world, the US is not prepared to respect any ruling when that ruling is not in their favour and that, for me, is like the law of the jungle once again. If we don’t respect the international legislation, then how can we ask other countries to do so?”
George Bush, the US president, has asked states to review the cases affected by the ruling, but the US supreme court ruled earlier this year that neither the president nor the international court can force Texas’ hand.
Medellin’s supporters say the US congress or the Texas legislature should be given a chance to pass a law setting up procedures for new hearings before he is executed.
David Fathi, the US programme director from the Human Rights Watch group, told Al Jazeera that the decision to go ahead with the execution had grave implications for US citizens possibly facing execution abroad.
The US would find it difficult to say other countries should honour their obligations not to execute US citizens when the US has itself violated international law, he said.
Brutal attack
Late on Monday, Medellin was moved to a prison in Huntsville, Texas, where he would be the fifth Texas inmate to be executed this year.
His transfer came after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected requests for clemency and a reprieve.
Trial testimony showed Medellin was the first of six members of a street gang to attack the girls when the incident took place in 1993.
Sixteen year old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman, who were taking a shortcut home across a railway bridge in Houston, Texas.
The gang attacked the girls for an hour before strangling them and leaving their bodies to decompose in a field.
Source: Aljazeera.net
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