Despite worldwide calls, Troy Davis faces execution

BARRING a last-minute reprieve from the US Supreme Court, Troy Davis was due be executed by the state of Georgia at 7pm local time this evening, a death sentence that thousands of his supporters around the world, including former US President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI, feel represents a miscarriage of justice unrivalled in recent times.

The 42-year-old Davis has been on death row since 1991, convicted of the murder of Savannah policeman Mark MacPhail in August 1989.

MacPhail had been working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he went to break up an argument between several men in a nearby car park.

He was shot in face and heart during the melee, and one of the men involved in the fight, Sylvester 'Redd' Coles, fingered Davis for the murder. During his 1991 trial many more witnesses came forward to say either they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, or that he had confessed to them that he had killed the policeman.

The murder weapon was never found, and no forensic evidence was ever discovered that implicated the then 20-year-old Davis, who has always maintained his innocence. Nevertheless, he was convicted of the shooting and subsequently sentenced to death in August 1991.

During the two decades that he has been exhausting his appeals in federal and state, many of the original witnesses to the crime have recanted their evidence - seven of the nine eyewitnesses who linked Davis to the murder have since admitted that their original testimony was incorrect.

Davis has also managed to convince an impressive number of politicians and prominent people of his innocence - in addition to Carter and the Pope, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, actress Mia Farrow and the former FBI director William S Sessions have all called for Davis to be granted a new trial.

But all their support, and that of thousands of people from around the world who have sent round-robin emails about the case or have signed petitions calling for clemency, seems to have come to nought.

Yesterday the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, the only body in the southern state with the power to commute Davis' sentence, refused to grant him clemency following a final appeal to them on Monday. Barring a legal miracle, Davis was set to die by lethal injection later today. ·