The US broke international law when it executed a Mexican citizen, the UN’s top human rights official said on Friday.
The Texas execution of Humberto Leal “raises particular legal concerns,” including whether he had access to consular services and a fair trial, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said.
Leal Garcia was executed on Thursday evening for the 1994 rape and murder of a San Antonio teenager after his attorneys, supported also by the Mexican government and other diplomats, unsuccessfully sought a stay.
Photo: AFP
Mexico’s government, US President Barack Obama’s administration and others wanted the US Supreme Court to stay the execution to allow Congress time to consider legislation that would require court reviews for condemned foreign nationals who are not offered the help of their consulates. The high court rejected the request 5-4.
Texas Governor Rick Perry also declined to block the execution. Texas, the US’ most active death penalty state, has executed other condemned foreign nationals who raised similar challenges, most recently in 2008.
“Texas is not bound by a foreign court’s ruling. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the treaty was not binding on the states and that the president does not have the authority to order states to review cases of the then 51 foreign nationals on death row in the US,” said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Perry.
However, what Texas did also “places the US in breach of -international law,” said Pillay, who visited Mexico this week. “What the state of Texas has done in this case is imputable in law to the US and engages the United States’ international responsibility.”
Pillay said Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles each failed to exercise consular and fair-trial obligations — spelled out under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — that could have prevented the US from breaching its obligations under international law.
Pillay also cited a 2004 International Court of Justice ruling saying the US must review and reconsider the cases of 51 Mexican nationals — including Leal Garcia — who were sentenced to death. She said those reviews never happened.
She said the execution undermined “the role of the International Court of Justice, and its ramifications are likely to spread far beyond Texas.”
Mexico’s foreign ministry has said in a statement it condemns the execution of Leal Garcia and has sent a note of protest to the US State Department. It said Mexico’s ambassador to the US, Arturo Sarukhan, also attempted to contact Perry, who refused to speak on the telephone.
Leal Garcia, a 38-year-old mechanic, repeatedly apologized and then shouted: “Viva Mexico!” as the lethal drugs began taking effect on Thursday.
He was sentenced to death for killing 16-year-old Adria Sauceda, whose brutalized nude body was found hours after the two left a street party.
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
RSS