Amnesty NZ to protest against new US President

10:45 AM

Amnesty International New Zealand will on Tuesday protest against the "heinous use" of the death penalty by US President George W. Bush during his time as Governor of Texas.

Spokeswoman Rebecca Linehan said a small group plan to picket the US embassy in Wellington.

Ms Linehan said they hope to make motorists aware of the issue as they travel to work.

President Bush was elected Governor of Texas in 1995.

In his five years in the position he approved 116 executions - more than any other US governor in modern times, according to the website of London newspaper The Guardian.

Since the US Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban in 1976, 225 of the 654 executions carried out in the United States have been in Texas.

Speaking in an television interview with NBC last February, President Bush (then Governor of Texas) said he was confident every person that had been put to death in Texas under his watch had been guilty of the crime charged.

He said he had reviewed "every case that's come across my desk".

- IRN, HERALD ONLINE STAFF