ITALY. SIGNATURES COLLECTED IN PARLIAMENT TO SAVE STANLEY WILLIAMS

Italy’s deputies and senators are also collecting signatures to ask California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Stanley Williams, scheduled to be executed on December 13.
The initiative to garner support for the appeal promoted by Hands Off Cain was taken up by Pietro Folena, an independent deputy of the Communist Refoundation (Prc) group.
Williams, 51, faces lethal injection for the 1979 slayings of a convenience store clerk and three people at a motel. He has maintained his innocence and has asked the California Supreme Court to reopen his case, alleging shoddy forensics wrongly connected him to three of the murders.
Williams founded the Crips with a childhood friend in 1971 in Los Angeles, where the gang battled rivals for territory and control of the drug trade.
In prison, however, Williams gained international acclaim for co-writing children's books about the dangers of gang life. An award-winning television movie starring Jamie Foxx, "Redemption," was based on his life.