Asuncion - Paraguay will file a case against the United States at the World Court in The Hague claiming the execution of a Paraguayan man in Virginia earlier this year was unjust, a Paraguayan diplomat said yesterday.
"We cannot now recover this young man's life, but we hope that the international court will issue a decision recognising the Paraguayan claim," Mr Manuel Caceres, Paraguay's ambassador to the European Union, told reporters.
Angel Breard (32) died by lethal injection in a Virginia prison on April 14th. Breard, born in Argentina but a naturalised Paraguayan, was convicted of murdering and attempting to rape a 37-year-old US woman in Arlington, Virginia in 1992.
The case attracted international attention because local authorities failed to inform Breard of his right to consular help from his homeland, as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a linchpin of international law.
Breard was put to death after the US Supreme Court rejected appeals seeking to halt the execution and the Virginia governor refused to intervene. The World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, had at the time called for a stay.