Nicaragua pleads with US to call off execution

Members of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, CENIDH, hold signs against the execution in the US of Nicaraguan Bernardo Aban Tercero in Managua, Nicaragua, Monday, Aug. 24, 2015. Tercero, whose age was in dispute during the trial, was sentenced to death in October 2000 in connection with the March 1997 fatal shooting of Robert Berger, 38, a Reagan High School English teacher. The execution is scheduled for next Wednesday Aug. 26 in Huntsville, Texas. The sign at right reads in Spanish, “yes to life, no to death. Respect Bernardo’s life.” AP Photo

MANAGUA, Nicaragua—Nicaraguan officials and activists called on the United States Monday to cancel the execution in Texas later this week of Bernardo Tercero, the only Nicaraguan national on death row in the US.

Tercero is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Wednesday for killing high school English teacher Robert Berger while robbing a Houston dry cleaning business in 1997.

The impending execution has sparked protests in Nicaragua, which abolished capital punishment in 1979, when the leftist Sandinista rebels came to power.

“For us here in Nicaragua, where we don’t have the death penalty and embrace a spirit of humanitarianism and solidarity, it seems pathetic to be on the verge of a Nicaraguan citizen’s execution,” said the country’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, Denis Moncada.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has been pleading for clemency for Tercero with US officials “at the highest level,” including President Barack Obama, Moncada told Channel Two news.

Activists have called a demonstration later in the day to demand Tercero be spared.

Nicaraguan national Bianca Jagger, a campaigner for the abolition of the death penalty, is one of those leading the protest movement.

“His execution would constitute an egregious miscarriage of justice,” she wrote in an online petition signed by more than 500 people.

Jagger, the ex-wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, said Tercero had “abysmal” legal representation and that his case was fraught with errors.

Church leaders in the majority Catholic country also joined the appeal.

“I call with all my heart on the US authorities to accept the petitions to save Bernardo Tercero’s life,” said Cardinal Miguel Obando.