PENA MORTE: MESSICO, FOX SOTTRAE AL BOIA DUE MILITARI

PRESIDENTE COMMUNTA PENA CAPITALE IN 20 ANNI RECLUSIONE

CITTA' DEL MESSICO,  Il presidente messicano Vicente Fox ha concesso oggi l'indulto a due militari condannati a morte da una corte marziale per insubordinazione e per aver causato la morte di un superiore.

   La presidenza messicana - in un comunicato - ha annunciato che l'indulto presidenziale commuta la pena di morte a venti anni di reclusione per ciascuno dei due condannati.

La corte marziale aveva condannato a morte il sergente dell'esercito Angel Velasquez Perez, per insubordinazione grave, e il sottotenente Heron Varela Flores, per l'omicidio del colonnello Salvador Juarez Villa all'interno della caserma del 20� Reggimento cavalleria di Ciudad Juarez, al confine con il Texas. Varela Flores ha confessato l'omicidio sostenendo di essere stato molestato sessualmente dal suo superiore.

   Le condanne a morte dei due militari avevano creato imbarazzo nel governo del presidente Fox, che ha ricevuto numerosi riconoscimenti internazionali per la sua ferma opposizione alla pena di morte, da lui definita ''inumana''.

   La costituzione messicana prevede la pena di morte, ma tale condanna viene ormai applicata solo dal codice penale militare e non da quello civile.

   L'ultima esecuzione in Messico risale al 1937. Da allora, tre sentenze capitali sono state commutate in altrettante pene detentive.

MEXICO: Fox spares 2  Mexico soldiers facing death penalty

Mexican President Vicente Fox, a firm opponent of capital punishment, said on Wednesday he was overruling military courts and sparing 2 soldiers from the death penalty.

In brief statements Fox's office said he had reduced the death sentence against Sgt. Angel Velazquez Perez to 20 years in prison and would also overturn the death sentence against Heron Varela Flores, a 2nd lieutenant whose case became a cause for rights groups this week.

Both were convicted of killing superiors, a crime subject to punishment by death under the military penal code.

 Mexico has vigorously opposed the death penalty on the world stage, though its own military continues to hand down the sentence.

Fox noted that the death penalty has not been applied in at least 4 decades in Mexico.

"These sentences have always been reduced by the president," a statement from his office said.

Rights groups on Tuesday called on Fox to commute the sentence for Varela Flores, 24, who was found guilty in a court-martial last week of murdering a colonel in the northern border city of  Ciudad Juarez last February.

Varela Flores claimed he shot Col. Salvador Juarez Villa in self-defense after years of sexual harassment and abuse by his superiors. His lawyer and family say he did not get a fair trial in a military justice system that is closed to scrutiny, and they have appealed to a military high court.

While Fox was expected to follow his predecessors and reduce the sentence, rights activists said the government should take capital punishment off the books to make Mexican law conform with its public position on the issue.

The constitution provides for capital punishment, although the sanction only exists in military courts.

 Mexico has gone to the  World Court against the  United States to appeal more than 50 death sentences against its citizens, most recently in the case of a Mexican national on death row in  Oklahoma whose appeal was denied on Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fox, who labels the death penalty "inhumane," has received international recognition for his fight against it.

Any reform to the military penal code would need to be negotiated with military chiefs, who are resisting change, rights groups say.

Military justice already is a sensitive issue for Fox, whose drive to uncover and punish past atrocities by the army and other security forces has so far produced no results.