International News

WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (APP/AFP): The southern US state of Georgia on Wednesday executed a man convicted of killing a police officer, after the state parole board denied a request for clemency. Gregory Lawler, 63, was put to death by lethal injection at 11:49 pm (0349 GMT) at a prison in Jackson, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside Atlanta, prison authorities said. “Lawler refused a final prayer and did not record a final statement,” the Georgia Department of Corrections said. According to court documents, Lawler opened fire with an AR-15 rifle on two officers responding to a domestic dispute at his home in 1997, killing Officer John Sowa and seriously wounding the other officer. On Tuesday, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency petition from Lawler’s defense team. They had argued his life should be spared because he was recently diagnosed with autism, which had caused him to believe the officers came to his home to harm him. The pace of executions is declining in the United States, due to a combination of factors including a shortage of the drugs used to carry out lethal injections.