Two convicted kidnappers were put to death by lethal...

Two convicted kidnappers were put to death by lethal injection at the Pavon prison in an execution shown live on Guatemalan television. Amilcar Cetino Perez, 35, and Tomas Cerrate Hernandez, 39, were sentenced to death for their part in the kidnapping in January 1997 of Bonifassi de Botran, 80, an heir to the Botran liquor distillery fortune, killing her after her family had paid the ransom. The two men died proclaiming their innocence.Cetino was strapped down and at 6.05am, drugs flowed into his arm from a wall-mounted bag. Over 11 minutes, as he died, the programme showed the line of a heart monitor start to flatten, then it cut back to Cetino's hand as it quivered, then lay still.The second execution began at 7.15am. Cerrate was shown being led, shaking, to the death chamber, prison doctors said he had had "a complete nervous breakdown".The day before, the Guatemalan Congress had refused to grant amnesty to Luis Amilcar Cetin Perez. De Leon, Cetin's lawyer said his client's sentence was based on circumstantial evidence, which merits a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison and not the death penalty."If you kill, you must die" was the response from Efrain Rios Montt, Guatemala's former military dictator who now presides over Congress.