Missouri man executed; details from execution.

 By MICHAEL GRACZYK

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A  former federal drug informant was executed by injection for killing a Houston police officer in 1989, and Missouri executed a man who said he was trying to protect himself against another man's sexual advances.

In Missouri, William R. Jones was executed by injection early Wednesday for the January 1986 killing of Stanley Albert, a man he met at a Kansas City park frequented by gay men.

Prosecutors said Jones plotted the killing after dating Albert and deciding he wanted his Camaro. Jones shot Albert five times and dumped the body near a nature center. The defense contended Jones shot Albert in self-defense after the man made unwanted sexual advances.

The case drew attention in Europe, where opposition to the death penalty is strong, because Jones married an Austrian woman he met over the Internet.

Jones died at 12:04 a.m., three minutes after the first of three lethal doses was administered at the Potosi Correctional Center. He was the sixth Missouri inmate executed this year and the 59th since the state's death penalty was reinstated in 1989.

While on the gurney, Jones lifted his head and faced his family and said,   <I love you dad, I love you all.>  His wife Gerti blew him a kiss and said,   <I love you so much> as tears streamed down her face.

  Jones' fate was sealed late Tuesday when both Gov. Bob Holden and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals claiming Jones' original trial attorneys were  inept.

In a last statement read aloud after the execution, Jones said in a message  to Albert's children who were present that he regretted what had happened   but did not deserve to die.

<I am sorry for what has happened and that you suffered this great loss.

 But after 17 years of my incarceration, does this really give you a sense of  closure or simply a sense of vengeance? I pray for you all.>  Albert's   daughter, Robin Gazi, 32, said: <We do feel closure. Not vengeance. We feel  that 17 years was not long enough. But that justice was served.>  Among  those who appealed to Holden for clemency were the Austrian government and the Council of Europe, which said the execution would violate U.N. human   rights resolutions.

The European Parliament, meeting Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, signed and  submitted a petition asking Holden to spare Jones' life, according to  Laurent David of the France-based Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort, part of   the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.