Crime-weary Mexico muted at US execution
By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Aug. 6, 2008, 10:53AM
MEXICO CITY — Mexicans struggling with increasingly gruesome crimes at home gave the most muted reactions in recent memory to the execution of one of their own citizens in Texas.

With Mexican news dominated by the kidnap-killing of 14-year-old Fernando Marti, the execution of Mexican Jose Medellin for the 1993 rape-murder of two girls in Texas appears to have sparked far less outrage than people here have shown in previous death penalty cases.

Some Mexicans are even calling for the death penalty here.

"The terrible news of the Marti youngster has overshadowed the execution in Texas last night of a Mexican," said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst on the Televisa television network.

Indeed, banner headlines about the domestic kidnapping case dominated in almost all of the country's daily newspapers. Medellin's execution was relegated to small mentions lower down on the front pages — and in some cases, wasn't on the front page at all.

"There is no reason for outrage. The man was a rapist," said lawyer Gustavo Sanchez, 40, as he got a shoeshine on a Mexico City street. "If we had the death penalty here, there wouldn't be so many crimes."

Marti, the son of a prominent businessman, was kidnapped on a Mexico City street in June and found dead last week, even though his family paid the ransom his captors demanded. Several Mexico City policemen have been detained for questioning in the death; prosecutors believe they may have supplied kidnappers with information about the victim.

Guerra noted that "there are those who see this as an opportunity to call for a return to the death penalty." In fact, the congressional leader of Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Emilio Gamboa, said earlier this week that he supported capital punishment, long a taboo in Mexico.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the U.S. State Department about the decision to execute Medellin. The World Court ordered U.S. authorities to review the case, which drew international attention because of allegations that Medellin wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help following his arrest.

The Mexican government statement said officials "were concerned for the precedent that (the execution) may create for the rights of Mexican nationals who may be detained in that country."

In Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where Medellin was born, a small group of his relatives condemned his execution.

"This is another murder because no one has the right to take someone else's life, only God," said Medellin's cousin Reyna Armendariz.

A large black bow and a banner that read "No to the death penalty ... may God forgive you," hung from an iron fence in the front of the house where Medellin lived until moving to the United States at the age of 3.

But in a Wednesday morning speech announcing cabinet changes, President Felipe Calderon did not even mention Medellin's case.

In contrast, the execution of Mexican Irineo Tristan Montoya sparked angry demonstrations in Mexico in 1997, and his body was given a hero's welcome here. Montoya was convicted in a 1985 robbery and killing.

The difference between the two executions was not just one of time; the decade since Montoya was put to death has brought increasingly pervasive and brutal crime to Mexico.

For example, last week thieves robbing a bus on a highway north of Mexico City got mad when passengers didn't hand over their possessions quickly enough, so they shot and killed a 5-year-old boy.

Such crimes have sent a chill through society and decreased sympathy for criminal suspects; there are proposals before congress to institute life imprisonment — long banned in Mexico — for some particularly several crimes.

In an open letter published Wednesday, businessman Alfredo Harp Helu — himself the victim of a 1994 kidnapping — wrote that "the death of this boy reflects the depth of the social breakdown we have reached," adding "a change is urgently needed."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5927961.html