The US state of Georgia executed convicted murderer Troy Davis this morning in a case that drew international attention because of claims by his advocates that he may have been innocent.
Davis was put to death by lethal injection at 11.08pm (4.08am Irish time) at a prison in central Georgia for the murder of a police officer in 1989, prisons spokeswoman Kristen Stancil said.
The execution was delayed by more than four hours as the US Supreme Court considered whether to issue a stay.
The case provoked protests and an online petition accumulated nearly a million signatures because of doubts expressed in some quarters over whether he killed police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989.
Officer MacPhail was shot and killed outside a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, as he went to the aide of a homeless man who was being beaten.
The MacPhail family say Davis is guilty and the police officer’s son witnessed the execution.
Since Davis's conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify against him and some say another man committed the crime.
No physical evidence linked Davis to the killing.
Davis went to his death saying he was innocent, according to journalists who witnessed the execution.
"The incident that night was not my fault. I did not have a gun," Davis said, according to Rhonda Cook of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.
"I did not personally kill your son, father and brother. I am innocent," Ms Cook quoted Davis as telling members of MacPhail's family who were present in the death chamber.
Hundreds of protesters rallied outside Georgia Diagnostic and Classification prison earlier, chanting "I am Troy Davis" and other slogans and a cheer briefly went up when it was reported that the execution had been delayed.
But the crowd dwindled as the evening wore on, and by the time the execution took place they were outnumbered by police in riot gear. Most of Davis's supporters slipped away in silence as the execution was announced.
France and the Council of Europe this week urged US authorities to stay the execution.
Texas execution
In Texas, Lawrence Brewer, a 44-year-old white man affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, was executed for the racially-motivated murder of a disabled black man in 1998.
Brewer was pronounced dead at 6.21pm local time Wednesday, 10 minutes after receiving a lethal injection charged at Texas' Huntsville Prison.
Even Gloria Rubac of activist group the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement said Brewer was "not a sympathetic person."
Commenting on the brutal 1998 murder of 49-year-old James Byrd, Brewer told US media: "As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets... I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth."
Brewer and two co-defendants were convicted of torturing and killing the disabled victim by dragging him behind their truck, and later "leaving his decapitated and dismembered body to be found the following day by citizens and law enforcement officials," Texas officials said.
