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Texas court orders stay of execution

August 25, 2015

A 39-year-old Nicaraguan man has been granted a reprieve from the highest court in Texas. The decision follows protests from activists and the Nicaraguan president.

https://p.dw.com/p/1GLUB
Nicaragua Protest gegen die Hinrichtung von Bernardo Aban Tercero in Texas
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/E. Felix

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a reprieve Tuesday after attorneys contended that a witness at Bernardo Tercero's trial had given false testimony for the prosecution.

The state's appeals court returned the case to the Harris County trial court to review the claim, and said its reprieve would remain in effect until the appeal was resolved.

Tercero was convicted in 2000 of fatally shooting 38-year-old Robert Berger, who was in a Houston dry cleaners shop in March 1997 during a botched robbery. He maintains the shooting was accidental.

His defense lawyers made another appeal before a federal judge in Houston, contending Tercero was mentally incompetent. That appeal had not been ruled on when the state court halted the punishment.

Politicians, celebrities and clergy ask for mercy

Bonn Challenge 2.0 Bianca Jagger
Human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger is a vocal opponent of capital punishment.Image: DW/K. Jäger

The impending execution has sparked protests in Tercero's home country of Nicaragua, which abolished capital punishment in 1979, following the ascendency of the leftist Sandinista rebels.

"For us here in Nicaragua, where we don't have the death penalty and embrace a spirit of humanitarianism and solidarity, it seems pathetic to be on the verge of a Nicaraguan citizen's execution," Denis Moncada ,the country's ambassador to the Organization of American States, said.

Moncada said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had been pleading for US federal and state officials to intercede and spare Tercero's life, the chief diplomat told Channel Two news in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.

Nicaraguan national Bianca Jagger, a campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty, has been vocal in calling for Tercero's clemency.

"His execution would constitute an egregious miscarriage of justice," she wrote in an online petition signed by more than 500 people.

Church leaders in the predominately Catholic country have also made an appeal.

"I call with all my heart on the US authorities to accept the petitions to save Bernardo Tercero's life," Cardinal Miguel Obando said.

Texas governor rejects clemency

USA Todeszelle Todesstrafe Giftspritze
The death chamber inside the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. The chamber is where Texas executes prisoners by lethal injection.Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Buck

But Texas - which has the highest rate of capital punishment in the United States - has previouslyexecuted foreign nationals despite protests from their governments.

A spokesman for Texas governor Greg Abbott said that state and federal courts had rejected Tercero's appeals at least five times.

The most recent execution was carried out on August 3. David Lopez, 27, convicted of killing a police officer with his car during a chase in 2010, was killed by lethal injection. He had reportedly apologized for his crime and said he wanted to die.

His execution was the tenth to be carried out in Texas, so far, this year. At least eight other prisoners have execution dates scheduled for the remainder of 2015.

jar/lw (AP, AFP)