RP rapist set to be executed on Feb. 5

RP rapist set to be executed on Feb. 5

MANILA (AFP): Convicted child rapist Leo Echegaray will be executed on Feb. 5, the first in the Philippines in 23 years, Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas said on Friday.

"We were already furnished a copy of the writ of execution fixing the date to February 5," Cuevas told reporters.

The date was set by trial court Judge Thelma Ponferada, whose court originally handed down the death sentence on Echegaray for raping his then 11-year-old daughter in 1994.

Echegaray was supposed to have been put to death by lethal injection Jan. 4, but the Supreme Court granted a stay just three hours before the execution by issuing a restraining order. The court cited moves in Congress to repeal a law that restored the death penalty.