French President Jacques Chirac wrote a letter to his...

French President Jacques Chirac wrote a letter to his US counterpart Bill Clinton asking him to suspend the execution of a murderer who was condemned to death by a US federal court. Officials of the French embassy in Washington said that Chirac made the request in the name of the European Union (EU), of which France is holding the presidency, and in his personal name. Juan Raul Garza, a drug trafficker condemned to death in 1993 for three murders in Texas by a federal jurisdiction, was due to be executed on December 12 in the northern US state of Indiana. If executed, Garza would be the first US citizen to be put to death by a federal court since 1963.