_pollak
15.08.02, 15:36
Top Stories - Reuters
Texas Executes Cop Killer Despite Mexico's Pleas
Thu Aug 15,12:19 AM ET
By Jeff Franks
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas executed a Mexican citizen on Wednesday
for the 1988 murder of an undercover Dallas police officer despite pleas for
his life from Mexican President Vicente Fox ( news - web sites).
Javier Suarez Medina, 33, was put to death by lethal injection in the state
prison in Huntsville, 75 miles north of Houston, after the U.S. Supreme Court
( news - web sites) rejected a last-ditch legal appeal from Mexico, and Texas
Gov. Rick Perry refused Fox's request for a reprieve.
Following the execution, Fox canceled a three-day trip to Texas that he had
been scheduled to begin on Aug. 26. Rodolfo Elizondo, Fox's spokesman, said
the cancellation was meant as "an unequivocal sign of our rejection of the
execution."
A calm-looking Suarez, strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber, asked
the family of his victim, Dallas narcotics officer Lawrence Cadena, to
forgive him.
"I would like to apologize to the family members of the Cadena family for
whatever hurt and suffering I have caused you," he said. "I thought about
your loved one very much. He will be waiting for me in heaven. I will be able
to talk to him and ask him for forgiveness personally."
Suarez then began to sing "Amazing Grace" before he was overcome by the
lethal drugs.
Suarez was the fifth Mexican executed in Texas in the past 20 years in what
is becoming an increasingly sensitive issue for U.S.-Mexican relations, as
shown by Fox's intervention. He pleaded with Perry and friend President Bush
( news - web sites) to stop the execution, calling it his
government's "highest priority." But it was to no avail.
Afterward, a somber Eduardo Ibarrola, Mexican consul general in Houston, told
reporters: "Mexico rejects the application of the death penalty and believes
that it resolves nothing."
Suarez was condemned for fatally shooting Cadena, 43, during a buy-and-bust
drug sting in a Dallas parking lot on Dec. 13, 1988. Suarez, who was 19 at
the time of the crime, admitted that he killed Cadena, but said he did not
know Cadena was a police officer.
'GOD WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN'
A handful of anti-death penalty protesters shouted outside the prison as
Suarez was receiving the lethal injection.
"Hello, Texas, you criminal state. One day you will pay because God will not
let this happen," said one protester through a megaphone.
Mexico sought a stay of execution from the Supreme Court on the grounds that
police violated Suarez's rights because he was not put in contact with the
Mexican consulate after his arrest as required under the Vienna Convention
international treaty.
The Supreme Court rejected the appeal without comment shortly before Suarez
was executed. He was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m.
Suarez was born in Mexico, but had lived in Texas since age 3. Dallas police
said they did not put him in contact with Mexican officials because they did
not know he was a Mexican.
Prosecutors say Suarez would have been condemned to die under any
circumstances because he gunned down a police officer while making a cocaine
delivery
