Texas Executes Killer Despite Mexico Opposition

A Mexican American convicted of murdering a Dallas policeman in 1988 was executed Wednesday in Texas despite clemency appeals by Mexican President Vicente Fox, who then canceled a three-day trip to the state in protest.

Javier Suarez Medina, 33, was given an injection and died shortly after 6 p.m. CDT at the state prison in Huntsville, ending a cross-border legal drama and creating a new irritant in Mexico’s relations with the United States.

Fox had made personal calls this week to President Bush and Texas Gov. Rick Perry on behalf of the condemned man, arguing that he was denied the legal aid guaranteed to foreigners under an international treaty.

Three hours after Suarez’s death, Mexican presidential spokesman Rodolfo Elizondo announced that Fox would not go ahead with a scheduled trip Aug. 26 to visit Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, or a meeting during those days with Bush at his ranch near Crawford.

“This decision is an unequivocal signal of rejection of the execution,” Elizondo told reporters. “It would be inappropriate, in these lamentable circumstances, to go ahead with the visit to Texas.”

Mexican officials viewed the meeting with Bush as a chance to revive their country’s push for an immigration reform effort in the United States that would legalize the status of 3.5 million undocumented Mexicans.

The issue is a priority for Fox but was pushed off Washington’s agenda after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon raised new concerns about security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Some of Fox’s foreign policy advisors and members of his conservative National Action Party had urged him to go to Texas despite the execution, rather than sacrifice such an important policy goal.

News media and ordinary citizens in Mexico, which does not have a death penalty, followed the appeals for Suarez intensely. “I don’t understand how Americans can say, ‘In God we trust,’ and then in God’s name kill somebody,” said Guillermo Marin Franco, a human rights activist in Mexico City, the capital.

Suarez died after a final statement that lasted several minutes. He turned to the family of the victim and said, “Forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you all. I’m truly sorry.”

With his father looking through a window, Suarez spoke to supporters in Mexico. “Thanks for your support and for never leaving me alone,” he said in Spanish. “Viva Mexico.” At that, Suarez’s father raised his fist.

Suarez was sentenced to die for shooting 43-year-old undercover officer Lawrence Cadena during a narcotics sting at a Dallas convenience store parking lot.

The former fast-food worker confessed to the murder but said he did not realize the victim was a police officer.

The Mexican government claimed that Suarez was born in Mexico. It said he was not told of his right to seek legal help from the Mexican consulate in Dallas, as guaranteed by the 1963 Vienna Conventions.

Dallas authorities have said Suarez gave conflicting information about his birthplace, naming Mexico and Texas. Suarez spent most of his life in the United States.

On Wednesday, Fox asked Bush to delay the execution while the case was reviewed.

White House spokesman Jimmy Orr said Bush knew about Fox’s subsequent decision to cancel his trip, and he emphasized the two leaders’ strong ties. The two “have an excellent professional relationship and a strong friendship that reflects the deep bonds between their two countries,” Orr said. Earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously refused to commute Suarez’s sentence to life in prison. Suarez lost his final legal battle about 90 minutes before the execution, when the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, refused to grant a stay.

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Hart reported from Houston and Boudreaux from Mexico City.