World newsRapist dies as Manila brings back execution
The Philippines signalled its intention to get tough on crime yesterday when it carried out its first execution in 23 years.
Leo Echegaray, aged 38, a house painter convicted of raping his stepdaughter, was executed by lethal injection at the New Bilibid prison on the outskirts of Manila. He was the first prisoner put to death since capital punishment was reintroduced last year.
Ignoring pleas for clemency from the European Union and the Vatican, the president, Joseph Estrada, said he 'felt good' about his decision, and added:'future rapists need to know we mean business.'
More than 24 hours before the execution took place, Mr Estrada ordered a hotline between the presidential palace and the jail to be cut, telling the prison director he would not be calling him. A last-minute plea for a reprieve was rejected by the supreme court.
Echegaray was convicted of repeatedly raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter in Manila in 1994, though he maintained his innocence to the end.
According to the justice secretary, Serafin Cuevas, his final words were: 'I ask forgiveness from the Filipino people for the crimes I am accused of. A Filipino has killed a fellow Filipino.'
After the execution, Echegaray's lawyer, Theodore Te of the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag) said he was 'ashamed to be a Filipino' and that capital punishment would breed violence rather than deter it.
Security was tight outside the New Bilibid prison as both pro- and anti-death penalty groups gathered there. Prisons across the country were put on alert for possible riots and break-out attempts.
The execution has divided south-east Asia's only Roman Catholic country. Church leaders have warned of a 'culture of death' in the country and church bells pealed in protest across the country at 3pm, the time of the execution.
Despite the opposition from the Church, polls indicate that around 80 per cent of the population support the death penalty.
Alex Magno, a political analyst, believes that Filipinos are fed up with the state's inability to curb violent crime. 'Catholicism was brought to this country by the Spanish when the ideas of the Inquisition and the evilness of man supported a prevailing indigenous cultural trait that a bad person cannot be reformed,' he said.
There are now 915 prisoners on death row, although only a handful of convictions have been upheld by the supreme court.
However, corrupt judges have been exposed and some have justified rape convictions by saying a Filipina would never put a daughter through a traumatic trial without good reason.
A Briton, Albert Wilson, the first Westerner to be sentenced to death, was convicted of raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter last year, despite a corroborated alibi and evidence that the complainant had lied.
In 1987 the Philippines was the first Asian country to abolish the death penalty but it was reintroduced amid public fear of rising crime.
With 46 capital offences, 21 of which carry a mandatory death sentence, the Philippines 'retains among the highest number of capital offences in the world,' according to the secretary-general of Amnesty International, Pierre Sane. Alongside murder, rape and drug trafficking are crimes such as the illegal possession of a firearm.
This does not appear to be enough for Mr Estrada. Last week he suggested that issuing fake land titles should also become a capital offence.
His strong anti-crime stance may make it difficult for him to continue to plead clemency for Filipinos sentenced to death overseas.
'How can the president appeal for the reprieve of Filipinos in other countries when he is carrying out executions in the Philippines?' said Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jnr, an opponent of the death penalty.
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