Heeding a call from Pope John Paul II, Guatemalan President...

Heeding a call from Pope John Paul II, Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo agreed to halt state executions during his administration and will ask the National Assembly to abolish the death penalty altogether.
Portillo made the announcement during a rally in the highland province of Huehuetenango, according to reports in the dailies El Periodico and Prensa Libre. It followed a papal plea for a moratorium on executions.
"I believe, as (the pope's) letter says, that only God can give or take away life," Portillo said at the rally. Portillo also said he planned to send a bill banning the death penalty to the assembly the following week.
"The death sentence has neither dissuaded nor diminished crime or insecurity in the world," Portillo said.
The president's bill to abolish the death penalty could have trouble getting through the assembly, which is presided over by Efrain Rios Montt, the former dictator who defied the pope by going ahead with six executions in 1983.
Guatemala, the most populous Central American nation, is one of the only countries in Latin America with a death penalty. The pope - scheduled to visit Guatemala on July 29 and 30 - has campaigned vigorously against the death penalty, and Guatemala's regular executions make it an oddity among majority-Catholic countries.
In 1983, Rios Montt defied a papal plea and sparked international outrage when he executed six people three days before the pope's first Guatemalan trip.
Rios Montt, 76, is enjoying a political comeback and is head of the ruling Guatemala Republican Front, which holds a majority in the National Assembly. He is known to support the death penalty.
The six men executed by firing squad just before the pope's 1983 visit were sentenced to die for crimes ranging from kidnapping to subversive activities. They were convicted in secret military courts in operation at the height of Guatemala's bloody 1960-1996 civil war.
Guatemala last executed a prisoner in 2000. In the late 1990s, Guatemala changed the method of execution from firing squad to death by lethal injection.
Portillo's term of office ends in January 2004.