Mexico condemns Texas execution of its citizen

WASHINGTON: The US state of Texas on Wednesday executed a Mexican convicted of murdering his teen cousin, despite opposition from his home country and the United Nations.

“Mexico condemns the execution of Ruben Cardenas Ramirez,” its embassy in Washington said.

Ramirez, 47, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 10.26pm.

His lawyer, Greg Kuykendall, had filed in vain a series of lastminute appeals, including to the US Supreme Court, in hopes of a stay of execution.

Ramirez was found guilty of the 1997 kidnap, rape and murder of a 16-year-old cousin.

His homeland, where the death penalty was abolished in 2005, had asked the United States to stop the execution which comes amid tensions over President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it.

Mexican officials insist that Cardenas was not promptly given access to an attorney or the consular assistance that is allowed under the 1963 Vienna Convention.

“For the government of Mexico this is not an issue about culpability or innocence, but about respect for human rights and due process,” said Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the Mexican consul general in the Texas capital Austin.

Since the start of the case Cardenas “was denied the right to due process of law, as he was not granted prompt access to consular assistance,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the Austin-American Statesman newspaper.

UN human rights experts had also urged the US government not to carry out the execution.

“The US government will have implemented a death penalty without complying with international human rights standards,” wrote Agnes Callamard and Elina Steinerte, two UN human rights experts.

“(Cardenas) did not have access to a lawyer for the first 11 days of his detention,” they said.

“Some of the statements he made during this period were relied on by prosecutors during the trial.”

Neither was Cardenas informed of his right to seek consular assistance, the experts said. — AFP