Execution of rapist to be held in public

A public execution by lethal injection will be carried out to implement the death sentence imposed by the Philippine Supreme Court on a house painter who raped his 10-year-old stepdaughter in 1994.

Justice Secretary Teofisto Guingona said yesterday the execution of Leo Echegaray would be carried out in public to serve as a deterrent.

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, affirmed a trial court death sentence on Echegaray, 49, last week.

It was the first death sentence to be affirmed out of about 200 pending in the court.

Under the law, Echegaray should be executed in the next 18 months unless a plea for a reconsideration is accepted or President Fidel Ramos orders a stay of execution and commutes the sentence to life imprisonment.

Mr Guingona said his office was preparing to build a movable lethal injection booth in which the execution would be carried out.

'We want a collapsible lethal injection booth that can be moved from one place to another,' he said.

Mr Guingona said his office was also considering a plan to purchase a robot-operated lethal injection machine from the United States.

But he said he preferred the 'manual type of lethal injection because it is more accurate than the machine-operated one'.