US Execution of Mexican National Sparks Human Rights Outcry

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has condemned the execution of a Mexican in Texas, saying it violates a U.N. ruling on treatment of the Central American country's nationals in the U.S.

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Ruben Cardenas Ramirez, 47, was killed by lethal injection late Wednesday, having been convicted of the 1997 kidnap, rape and murder of his 16-year-old cousin, Marya Laguna. He told investigators he was high on cocaine at the time.

"I firmly condemn the execution of Ruben Cardenas Ramirez in Texas, which violates ruling of the International Court of Justice," Peña Nieto tweeted in Spanish. "My sympathies to the bereaved."

Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2005. The state of Texas, meanwhile, has executed more than 500 prisoners since 1982.

In 2004, the ICJ concluded that the U.S. had breached its international legal obligations by failing to notify Mexican authorities when it arrested 51 Mexican nationals, including Cardenas.

The U.N. body also noted that the U.S. had denied the Mexican detainees "the right to consular assistance from their government," the BBC reports.

Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, the Mexican consul general in Texas, told AFP: "For the government of Mexico this is not an issue about culpability or innocence, but about respect for human rights and due process."

The victim's sister, Roxana Jones, released a statement through the Texan Department of Criminal Justice. "After 21 years of waiting, justice was finally served. Words can't begin to describe the relief it feels to know that there is true peace after so much pain and sorrow," she said.