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Convicted murderer Ivan Cantu: Executed by lethal injection
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AFP
In his last words, he repeatedly protested his innocence: A 50-year-old prisoner was executed with a lethal injection in the US state of Texas.
Ivan Cantu was convicted more than 20 years ago for the fatal shooting of his then 27-year-old cousin James Mosqueda and his girlfriend.
Mosqueda was a drug dealer.
Prosecutors say Ivan Cantu killed him and his girlfriend while trying to steal cocaine, marijuana and cash from their North Dallas home.
Cantu claims a rival drug dealer killed his cousin in a dispute over money.
He had filed a request for a stay of his execution.
However, these were rejected by two courts.
A request for clemency was also unsuccessful.
His lawyer had argued that there was new testimony that corroborated his claim that his cousin had been threatened by another drug dealer.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Pardons still voted 7-0 against commuting the death sentence to a more lenient sentence and also refused to grant a four-month stay of execution.
Jurors from back then have doubts
Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and actor Martin Sheen, as well as several politicians, had campaigned for such a delay.
Three jurors from Cantu's trial had also requested a stay of his execution because they had doubts about his guilt.
A private detective looked into the case and recorded his findings in a podcast called “Cousins By Blood”.
District Attorney Greg Willis said he was not convinced by the new evidence.
He remains "firmly convinced that Ivan Cantu brutally murdered two innocent victims in 2000."
In Cantu's apartment, the police found bloody jeans with the victims' DNA and a key to her house.
The prosecution's main witness at the time was Ivan Cantu's ex-girlfriend.
Police officers had found his gun on her, with his fingerprints and his cousin's blood.
It was the first execution in Texas this year.
Hours earlier, authorities in Idaho halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech after a team of doctors repeatedly failed to find a vein to insert the drip needed to administer the lethal injection.
vet/AP