Texas rejects death row Mexican's plea Suarez is due to die on Wednesday

 14 August, 2002,

A Mexican man is to be executed later on Wednesday, after authorities rejected a plea for a stay of execution and ignored a personal appeal by the Mexican president.

Javier Suarez Medina will be executed by lethal injection unless he is given a last-minute reprieve by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

 Suarez was 19 when he killed the undercover police officer

 Mexican President Vincent Fox contacted Mr Perry late on Monday night, urging him to halt the execution to give officials "sufficient time" to review the case's "numerous violations," a statement released by Mr Fox's office said.

 But on Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to reject a stay of execution.

 International support

 Suarez has been on death row for 13 years, after being convicted in 1989 for the murder of police officer Larry Cadena, who was working undercover in Dallas as a drug trafficker.

 Suarez is just one of three death row inmates scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday, capital punishment opponents say.

 Mexican foreign ministers say Suarez was not told he qualified for assistance

 But his case is in the spotlight because of the support he has won internationally, from the Mexican Government, the European Union and the United Nations.

 Mexican officials say the violations of his rights began shortly after his arrest, when police failed to tell Suarez - who has lived in the US since he was three years old - that he had the right to legal assistance from the Mexican consulate.

 No-one disputes that Suarez murdered Mr Cadena, but he maintains he did not know his victim was a police officer.

 His lawyers argue that Suarez would have avoided the death penalty if he had been given timely legal help with this claim.

 "The Mexican Government was prevented from providing priority assistance that might have influenced the outcome of his trial," said Mr Fox in a letter to Mr Perry.

 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, also sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell calling for clemency.

 She said there were "serious concerns that the trial proceedings in the case had not complied with international human rights standards."

 Strained relations

 If Texas goes ahead with the execution, US-Mexico relations will be severely strained.

 Mexico opposes the death penalty, and opposition deputies in Mexico's Congress have even threatened to block Mr Fox's planned trip to Texas next month.

Faith is the only thing left

 Suarez's aunt, Norma Alicia Sonora 

There are 17 Mexicans facing the death penalty in Texas and 54 throughout the US, according to the Mexican Foreign Ministry.

 Four Mexicans have been executed over the past 10 years - three in Texas and one in Virginia.

 In the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras, Suarez's family members spoke of their fight to save the condemned prisoner.

 "Faith is the only thing left," said his aunt, Norma Alicia Sonora.

 Suarez himself, however, seems resigned to die and said in a recent newspaper interview that after 13 years in prison and 14 stays of execution, he now wants it all to end.

 "The truth is I hope that they now execute me," he told Mexican daily El Universal.

 "I prefer to die than spend the rest of my life here inside because here there is no life."