RP death convict wins last-minute reprieve

RP death convict wins last-minute reprieve

MANILA (AFP): In a dramatic decision on Monday just three hours before a convicted rapist was due to be put to death, the Philippine Supreme Court granted him an almost six-month stay of execution.

The court order suspended the execution of Leo Echegaray until after June 15 in response to a petition filed by his lawyer last week asking for more time while legislators debate the death penalty.

The 11th-hour decision suspended what would have been the country's first execution in 22 years. It also reopened the fierce debate on capital punishment with President Joseph Estrada angrily assailing the court's decision.

Echegaray, 38, a decorator, had already been moved before dawn on Monday from the maximum security "death row" of the national penitentiary to a holding area directly adjoining the death chamber where he was due to receive a lethal injection at 3:00 pm (2 p.m. Jakarta time).

He had been sentenced to death in 1994 for raping his then 11- year-old daughter.

Prison superintendent Venancio Tesoro said prison chaplain Father Roberto Olaguer gave Echegaray the news of his reprieve as the condemned man was about to eat his last meal of dried fish and sardines.

Echegaray had been unable to touch his food but when he got the news, he embraced Father Olaguer and then invited the four relatives who were due to witness his death-- his new wife, his sister and two aunts-- into the holding area to share his meal.

The court order was also received with applause and cries of "Praise the Lord" by about 100 death penalty opponents and relatives of death row convicts who had been holding vigil for Echegaray on prison grounds since Sunday.

However, Estrada, who has refused to commute Echegaray's death sentence, hit out at the court order, saying "it does not serve the interests of the Supreme Court to change rules... so late in the day."

He added the judiciary did not have the power to suspend laws and said the court's order was "purely political and not a legal act." Estrada also vowed to veto any lifting of the death penalty.

"Today is a sad day for law enforcement and the rule of law," Estrada added.

In a show of support for the death penalty, Estrada scheduled an impromptu meeting with Echegaray's victim. The girl, identified only as "Baby", now aged 15, had earlier called for Echegaray's death and criticized opponents of the death penalty for trying to prevent his execution.

Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas said he had ordered a motion of reconsideration to be filed to the Supreme Court asking it to reverse its order suspending the execution or at least to shorten the period covered.

Echegaray's lawyer, Theodore Te, a member of a human rights lawyers' group campaigning against the death penalty, said "at least, they gave a fighting chance to Echegaray."

"We have our work cut out for us. We will work to convince the congressmen to do away with the death penalty," said Te, adding that "by all means, this is not finished but this is the important first step in the campaign against the death penalty."

In its order, the Supreme Court warned that it would not entertain any more petitions for a postponement of the execution after June 15.

The last execution in the Philippines was in 1976.

The death penalty was abolished under a new constitution in 1987 but it was restored in 1994 amid popular clamor after a spate of spectacular crimes.

Its scope was even widened to include such rimes as child rape, kidnapping, murder and possession of drugs down to 750 grams of marijuana.

Since then, 864 people have been placed on death row.

The death penalty remains widely popular in this country although the Roman Catholic church, to which most Filipinos belong, has consistently campaigned against it.