Texas executes man convicted of killing four people

American was executed Texasmore than thirty years after four drug-related murders, which he denied.

Arthur Brown Jr. 52 years old, received a lethal injection in the city’s state prison Huntsville, in the southern United States, local authorities said. He was declared dead at 18:37 local time.

Brown became the fifth death row inmate in a conservative US state. Texas and ninth in the country since the beginning of the year.

In its latest statement released by the Department of Criminal Justice TexasBrown insisted that he had been treated unfairly over the years while his case went to trial, and again said he did not commit the murders for which he was convicted.

“What’s happening here tonight is not justice, it’s the murder of an innocent man for a murder that happened in 1992,” Brown said in a statement.

According to the prosecution, in 1992 he and two accomplices came to the house of his drug supplier in the city of St. Houston. After tying up the six inhabitants of the premises, they were shot in the back of the head.

Four of his victims, including a minor and a pregnant woman, died, two survived.

Sentenced to death

Arthur Brown Jr. was arrested four months later and sentenced to death in 1994, although he always maintained his innocence. His alleged accomplices were also convicted in the killings, with one executed in 2006 and another serving a life sentence.

Brown’s lawyers asked United States Supreme Courtwho outlawed the death penalty for people with intellectual disabilities to stop the execution, claiming that Brown was mentally ill.

And a court in Houston earlier this week denied a request by Brown’s lawyers, who argued that his conviction was based on false testimony, and asked to consider new DNA evidence.

British billionaire Richard Branson defended Brown and called for the execution to be stopped.

“Mr Brown’s mental retardation alone should be reason enough not to execute him,” Branson wrote on his website. (AFP)