White supremacist execution

Thursday 05 June 1997 23:02 BST

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Alabama's governor, Fob James, yesterday refused to block the execution scheduled for early today of a white supremacist convicted of murder in the 1981 lynch-style slaying of a black teenager. Henry Francis Hays, 42, was set to die at 12.01am in Alabama's first execution for a white- on-black crime since 1913.

Hays was convicted in the 1981 killing of Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black man who was abducted at random from a Mobile street by two men, then beaten, cut and strangled. His body was strung up in a tree by the curb,"to show Klan strength in Alabama", according to the prosecution. AP - Mobile, Alabama

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