US to execute Jamaican today

André Williams, STAR Writer

A Jamaican man convicted in Florida for killing a state trooper 22 years ago with a pipe bomb is to be executed today.


Convicted drug dealer, Paul Augustus Howell's execution is set for 6 p.m. Attorneys representing Howell had failed to block the execution.


Tallahassee.com reported that the judge denied a request by Howell's attorneys who claimed the lethal-injection cocktail would subject him to an agonising death.


The governor signed a death warrant for Howell last January, but the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the execution.


However, last week, Florida Attorney General, Pam Bondi, certified that the stay had been lifted.


Howell was a member of a South Florida drug ring when he rigged a bomb inside a microwave oven as part of a plot to kill a Jackson County woman who could tie him to the murder of another drug dealer.


He dispatched another man to deliver the bomb by car, which Trooper Fulford stopped for speeding along Interstate 10 in Jefferson County. The bomb exploded while Fulford was searching the car, killing him instantly.



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