A Mexican citizen was executed in the US state of Texas despite objections by Mexico and others that he was not given proper access to diplomatic services.
Edgar Arias Tamayo was executed by lethal injection and declared dead at 9:32pm on Wednesday for killing a police officer in his police car after being arrested for a robbery at a Texas bar in 1994.
The Mexican government and the US State Department had called for a revision of the sentence as Tamayo was never told of his legal right to contact the Mexican consulate after his arrest.
The State Department expressed concern about the precedent for US citizens detained abroad, who rely on the same provision of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations for access to US diplomats.
But the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused a last-minute appeal, saying the federal government could not compel Texas state authorities to call off the execution.
International bodies including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had also called for reconsideration.
The U.N’s International Court of Justice found in a 2004 case known as the Avena decision that the US had violated its treaty obligations in dozens of convictions of Mexican citizens, including Tamayo.
