Mexicans struggling with increasingly gruesome crimes at home gave the most muted reactions in recent memory to the execution of one of their own citizens in Texas.With Mexican news dominated by the kidnap-killing of 14-year-old Fernando Marti, the execution of Mexican Jose Medellin for the 1993 rape-murder of two girls in Texas appears to have sparked far less outrage than people here have shown in previous death penalty cases.
Some Mexicans are even calling for the death penalty here.
"The terrible news of the Marti youngster has overshadowed the execution in Texas last night of a Mexican," said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst on the Televisa television network.
Indeed, banner headlines about the domestic kidnapping case dominated in almost all of the country's daily newspapers. Medellin's execution was relegated to small mentions lower down on the front pages -- and in some cases, wasn't on the front page at all.
"There is no reason for outrage. The man was a rapist," said lawyer Gustavo Sanchez, 40, as he got a shoeshine on a Mexico City street. "If we had the death penalty here, there wouldn't be so many crimes."
Marti, the son of a prominent businessman, was kidnapped on a Mexico City street in June and found dead last week, even though his family paid the ransom his captors demanded. Several Mexico City policemen have been detained for questioning in the death; prosecutors believe they may have supplied kidnappers with information about the victim.
Guerra noted that "there are those who see this as an opportunity to call for a return to the death penalty." In fact, the congressional leader of Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Emilio Gamboa, said earlier this week that he supported capital punishment, long a taboo in Mexico.