Ignoring pleas from Great Britain, Georgia executed...

Ignoring pleas from Great Britain, Georgia executed a man with dual British-American citizenship for the murder and rape of Jean D. Drew, 46, on Easter Sunday 1985. Tracy Lee Housel, who was born in the British territory of Bermuda, was pronounced dead at 7:28 p.m. by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostics and Classification Prison The BBC broadcast that news live to audiences in England. Prime Minister Tony Blair asked the state parole board to commute Housel's sentence to life in prison. The Law Society, representing 80,000 lawyers in England and Wales, also wrote to the parole board, and 121 members of the British Parliament signed a motion calling for Housel's sentence to be commuted. The Georgia parole board turned down Housel's plea for mercy yesterday. Housel becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia and the 15th in the USA.On February 27, the British government has asked Gov. Roy Barnes to spare the life of a dual British-American citizen scheduled to die next month for the 1985 rape and murder of a Georgia woman. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called Barnes to ask him to commute Tracy Lee Housel's sentence to life in prison. Housel, 43, was born in Bermuda, a British territory, but has lived most of his life in the United States.