DALLAS, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Mexican government officials Monday announced an 11th-hour bid to halt Wednesday's scheduled execution of a Mexican national in Texas for the murder of a Dallas undercover narcotics officer nearly 14 years ago.
Miguel Monterrubio, press secretary for the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, said 10 other governments would join Mexico in the fight to save Javier Suarez Medina from a lethal injection because his government was not notified of the charges as required by international law.
Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the United States was legally required to inform Suarez when he was arrested of his right to legal assistance from the Mexican government. The issue has been raised before in Texas death row cases but has yet to succeed to halting one.
"In this particular case it's even worse because it was not only that the Mexican government was not notified, but the information that he was Mexican was denied to the Mexican consulate because the Mexican consulate in Dallas got in touch with the authorities there and they specifically said he was not Mexican," Monterrubio said.
The Mexican government has also written Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in an effort to win clemency for the 33-year-old death row inmate. If that fails, the Mexican officials are vowing to take their case to the Supreme Court.
Suarez was convicted and sentenced to death for the December 1988 murder of 43-year-old Lawrence Cadena, a 17-year veteran of the Dallas police force who was shot seven times while seated in an unmarked police car.
Lori Ordiway, chief of the appellate division for the Dallas district attorney, said Monday it was not clear at the time of Suarez's arrest, when he was 19, that he was a Mexican national.
Although Suarez told officers he was born in Mexico, he had moved to the United States at the age of 3, received a U.S. education, could read and write, and could have been a U.S. citizen, she said. He also said at trial he was born in El Paso, Texas, she said.
Ordiway said Suarez has filed four different applications for writs of habeas corpus since 1995 and has had full access to all his legal rights.
"Last week was the first time in 13 years since his conviction that he has raised this claim," she said.
There are currently about 50 Mexican nationals on death rows nationwide, five of them in Texas.
Amnesty International USA also protested the execution last week.
"The U.S. government would never allow one of its citizens to face trial and execution in a foreign country without access to U.S. assistance -- and therefore must respect Mexico's wishes to halt this execution," said Eric Olson, American's director for American International USA. "The U.S. must respect its obligation to international law and commute the death sentence of Javier Suarez."
In a similar case last year, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the death sentence of Mexican national Gerardo Valdez because local officials violated his right to consular notification and due to mitigating evidence Mexican government officials found.
