OKLAHOMA 15 Jul (ANA) - The US government has carried out the first federal execution in almost two decades, putting to death a man who killed an Arkansas family in the 1990s.

 

The execution came over the objection of the victims' family.

 

Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, died by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

 

"I didn't do it," Lee said just before he was executed.

 

"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm not a murderer... You're killing an innocent man."

 

The decision to move forward with the execution – the first by the Bureau of Prisons since 2003 – drew scrutiny from civil rights groups and the relatives of Lee's victims, who had sued to try to halt it, citing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

 

"The government has been trying to plough forward with these executions despite many unanswered questions about the legality of its new execution protocol," said Shawn Nolan, one of the lawyers for the men facing federal execution.

 

The developments are likely to add a new front to the national conversation about criminal justice reform in the lead-up to the 2020 elections.

 

One of Lee's lawyers, Ruth Friedman, said it was "shameful that the government saw fit to carry out this execution during a pandemic".

 

"And it is beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste," Ms Friedman said in a statement.

 

But US Attorney General William Barr said, "Lee finally faced the justice he deserved. The American people have made the considered choice to permit capital punishment for the most egregious federal crimes, and justice was done today in implementing the sentence for Lee's horrific offences."

 

The execution of Lee, who was pronounced dead at 8.07am local time, went off after a series of legal volleys that ended when the Supreme Court stepped in early on Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling and allowed it to move forward.

 

Mr Barr has said the Justice Department has a duty to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts, including the death penalty, and to bring a sense of closure to the victims and those in the communities where the killings happened.

 

But relatives of those killed by Lee in 1996 strongly opposed that idea and long argued that Lee deserved a sentence of life in prison. They wanted to be present to counter any contention that the execution was being done on their behalf.

 

"For us it is a matter of being there and saying, 'This is not being done in our name; we do not want this'," relative Monica Veillette said.

 

They noted that Lee's co-defendant and the reputed ringleader, Chevie Kehoe, received a life sentence.

 

Kehoe, of Colville, Washington, recruited Lee in 1995 to join his white supremacist organisation, known as the Aryan Peoples' Republic.

 

Two years later, they were arrested for the killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, in Tilly, Arkansas.

 

At their 1999 trial, prosecutors said Kehoe and Lee stole guns and 50,000 dollars in cash from the Muellers as part of their plan to establish a whites-only nation.

 

Prosecutors said Lee and Kehoe incapacitated the Muellers and questioned Sarah about where they could find money and ammunition.

 

Then, they used stun guns on the victims, sealed rubbish bags with duct tape on their heads to suffocate them, taped rocks to their bodies and dumped them in nearby water.(ANA)

FA/ANA/15 July 2020-------