PENA MORTE: USA; PRIMA ESECUZIONE IN NEW MEXICO DAL 1960 

 NEW YORK, 7 NOV - Il New Mexico ha eseguito la prima esecuzione dopo oltre 40 anni, con un'iniezione letale che ha ucciso Terry Clark, accusato di aver violentato e ucciso nel 1986 una bambina di 9 anni. Era dal 1960 che non veniva eseguita una condanna a morte nello stato, che ha dovuto chiedere nelle ultime settimane aiuto al Texas per riorganizzare la camera della morte.

 E' la seconda esecuzione nel giro di poche ore negli Stati Uniti: in precedenza era stato giustiziato un detenuto in Georgia, anche in questo caso per l'uccisione di un bambino.

 Clark e' stato dichiarato morto alle 19:12 locali, le 3:12 in Italia.

 All'esecuzione hanno assistito i genitori della bambina e la fidanzata del condannato a morte. La Corte Suprema degli Usa, nelle ore precedenti, aveva respinto un ultimo appello per annullare la condanna a morte.

- 07-NOV

New Mexico carries out 1st execution since 1960 

(Recasts with execution carried out, new throughout) 

By Zelie Pollon SANTA FE, N.M.  - New Mexico on Tuesday executed a confessed child murderer who asked to be put to death after 15 years in prison, the state's first execution since 1960. Former Navy sailor and carpenter Terry Clark, 45, was put to death by lethal injection after a last-minute flurry of appeals by death penalty opponents, who did not represent Clark, were rejected by federal and state courts. 

Clark was pronounced dead at 7:12 p.m. (9:12 p.m. EST/0212 GMT), 10 minutes after being injected with a lethal mix of chemicals in the death chamber of a state penitentiary near Santa Fe, state officials said. "15 minutes," was all Clark said when asked if he had any last words after being strapped to the death chamber gurney. There were 17 witness, including the mother and father of Clark's victim, Dena Lynn Gore, as well as a girlfriend, lawyer, psychologist and Christian minister invited by Clark as his witnesses. 

Clark confessed that he snatched Dena from her bicycle and took her to a remote ranch, where he raped her. When she threatened to tell on him, Clark said he shot her three times in the head. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't suffer from extreme guilt," Clark wrote recently in a letter to a reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune. 

The last-ditch appeals included arguments that Clark was mentally incompetent because of a head injury and that he had been coerced by prison living conditions to ask for execution. A state judge dismissed similar arguments in August when he set the execution date, granting Clark's request after months of hearings about the condemned man's competency to wave his appeals. New Mexico's last execution was in 1960, when David Cooper Nelson died in the gas chamber for murdering a hitchhiker. There were seven other executions between 1933 and 1960. Clark, who has been on death row for 15 years, was transported late on Monday to a 12-foot-by-7-foot (3.6 metre by 2 metre) concrete holding cell just 15 feet (4.6 metres) away from the death chamber in Unit No. 4, the execution building. 

The last meal he requested was jumbo fried shrimp, fried okra, avocado slices, peach cobbler and ice cream. Clark received three visitors and ate dinner with his spiritual adviser, a Christian minister who was not named at Clark's request. He was also given two packs of Camel cigarettes and a radio. The state Supreme Court last week rejected a petition by death penalty opponents to halt the execution. 

The state high court has said it would only consider an appeal from Clark himself, and Clark has sought the execution for two years. New Mexico reinstated its death penalty in 1979, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban. Three other inmates are currently on death row in New Mexico, all still facing long appeals processes, officials said. Death penalty opponents and supporters gathered peacefully at the state capital. No disturbances were reported.