WASHINGTON, 5 DIC - Un uomo che nel 1994 uccise sua moglie e suo fratello, perche' sospettava che fra i due ci fosse una tresca, e' stato messo a morte mercoledi' sera, nel carcere di Huntsville, in Texas, con un'iniezione letale.

   Leonard Rojas, 52 anni, e' cosi' stato il 32/o condannato a morte la cui pena e' stata eseguita quest'anno in Texas e il 288/o da quando la pena e' di nuovo applicata nello Stato, dal 1982, dopo una moratoria nazionale.

   Rojas confesso' il duplice omicidio e il suo movente, la gelosia. Nonostante la sua colpevolezza non fosse in dubbio, il suo caso era citato ad esempio della scarsa tutela legale di cui godono in Texas alcuni imputati che rischiano la pena di morte.

   In uno studio pubblicato martedi' da un gruppo che si batte contro la pena di morte, si ricorda, fra l'altro, che il legale di Rojas subi' diverse azioni disciplinari ed era largamente incompetente.

Prima di essere messo a morte, Rojas non ha voluto fare dichiarazioni. Prima della fine dell'anno e' prevista ancora un'esecuzione in Texas, l'11 dicembre.

TEXAS - Man who killed wife, brother executed

 In Juntsville, a South Texas man who confessed to killing his common-law wife and brother, whom he suspected of having an affair, was executed today.

 Leonard Rojas, 52, was asked by the warden if he had a final statement.

 Rojas, wearing a white collared shirt that partially exposed his chest, responded "No."

 As the lethal drugs began flowing, Rojas' eyes blinked and he pursed his lips. He took 2 deeps breaths, then his mouth fell open and his eyes shut tightly.

 He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. CST, 8 minutes after receiving the lethal injection.

 3 of Rojas' 7 surviving brothers watched the execution. Rojas' cousin, Maria Rojas, stood at the window looking into the death chamber.

 Soon after Rojas took his final gasp, she whispered "He's gone."

 Leonard Rojas said recently he had no regrets about shooting Jo Ann Reed between the eyes after having one last sexual encounter with her and then turning the gun on his younger brother David Rojas.

 "I'll never regret it. Never," he said of the 1994 killings. "These people, they were just basically evil. They just wanted my money, wanted my drugs and they wanted to do me in."

 Rojas, who had spent time in prison in California and Nevada for drug convictions, claimed the 2 were having an affair and attempting to drug him to death. Those claims never were proven, said Johnson County assistant district attorney David Vernon.

 "Leonard was an extremely possessive type of person," Vernon said. "He confronted her about having sex with his brother and she laughs at him."

 Rojas said he recalled seeing his wife leave his brother's room that morning.

 "'You can't prove nothing, Leo,'" Rojas recalled her saying. "They just put me in the corner and I just snapped."

 Rojas said he used a 32-caiber gun he got in exchange for cocaine to shoot his 34-year-old wife, then his 43-year-old brother. The slayings took place in the mobile home the trio shared in Alvarado, near Forth Worth.

 "I just said no more abuse from these people," Rojas said. "The alternative I came out with was to get even with them."

 After the killing, Vernon said Rojas drank some coffee, talked on the phone and then decided to leave. He bought a bus ticket from Fort Worth to Atlanta, Ga., making it as far as Dallas before he came across some security guards and decided to confess.

 "My heart was beating and my brain was like fried after all these incidents," Rojas said.

 Vernon doesn't know why Rojas confessed. His only guess is that Rojas' drug use could have made him paranoid.

 "It would have taken us years to find him if he had gotten on that bus and taken off," Vernon said.

 Instead, Johnson County prosecutors ended up with three confessions, one of which was videotaped as Rojas led Texas Ranger George Turner and a sheriff's deputy through the mobile home describing the killings.

 The videotape confession "became Exhibit A," Turner said.

 "He was the first one that I had ever had walk me through a crime scene on video," Turner said.

 Rojas was sentenced to death in 1996. Vernon said prosecutors didn't have to do much to get the conviction.

 "I'm guilty. I'm a sinner. I'm ready to go if they're going to kill me," Rojas said last month.

 Rojas had said he was prepared to die in the month leading up to his execution.

 "At least he's not crying about it," said Turner, the Texas Ranger who took his confession. "He is stepping up to the plate like he always did. He was a pretty pleasant ol' boy -- the crime aside." 

Rojas becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 288th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982.

 The execution set for next Wednesday of James Collier, condemned for the 1995 shooting deaths of a Wichita Falls mother and her son, is the final execution scheduled for 2002 in Texas.

 Rojas becomes the 62nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 811th overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977. There are 9 more executions which are likely to be carried out before Dec. 20 in the USA.