The US State of Texas has carried out its 400th execution of a man convicted of shooting dead a convenience store owner during a robbery since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Johnny Ray Conner, 32, who spent eight years on death row, was put to death by lethal injection Wednesday. He was convicted in the murder of the store clerk in Houston in 1998, but he claimed his innocence to the end of his life.

The execution was carried in spite of protests from opponents and the European Union.

Conner was convicted in 1999 of killing Kathyanna Nguyen, 49, by shooting her in the face during an attempted robbery.

"What is happening to me now is unjust and the system is broken," Conner said as he lay strapped to the execution gurney.

"Please forgive me," he told the victim's sister through the windows of the death chamber.

"I bear witness there is no God but Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. Unto Allah, I belong, unto Allah I return. I love you," were his last words to his family, who were also watching.

Conner's fingerprint was found on a bottle at the shooting scene, while Julian Gutierrez - a customer who survived being shot in the shoulder as he ran out during the robbery - was among at least three people to identify him.

The southern state accounts for almost a third of the 1,091 American executions over the last three decades, and this year it will be responsible for almost two thirds - 21 out of 35 judicial killings so far.

RenГ© van der Linden, President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), and as such representing a 47-nation "death-penalty-free zone" in Europe, strongly condemned the execution of Johnny Ray Conner.

"This 400th execution since Texas resumed the death penalty in 1982, after an 18-year moratorium, is a macabre milestone in the states' history," Mr van der Linden said.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!