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2000: Two kidnappers, televised by Guatemala

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On this date in 2000, Amilcar Cetino Perez and Tomas Cerrate Hernandez were executed on live television in Guatemala for kidnapping and murdering a liquor heiress.

The televised Perez execution began at 6:05 a.m., with Hernandez (reportedly “shaking badly”) following at 7:15. Both took some minutes; Amnesty International has charged that they were botched and the prisoners suffered prolonged suffering. The macabre spectacle was replayed on Guatemalan TV throughout the day.

So daunting (or puffed-up) was the menace posed by the Los Posaco kidnapping-and-extortion gang they belonged to, the president sent his family to Canada to shield them from reprisals.

Today’s casualties were the second and third persons to die by lethal injection in Guatemala,* and remain to this date the last.

They might not retain that distinction long, however. Legislation earlier this year filled a legal gap that had caused a five-year moratorium on executions — ironically, by restoring the president’s power to pardon and commute death sentences.

* Lethal injection was introduced after a televised execution by firing squad came off most un-telegenically.

On this day..