Alabama executes 83-year-old serial bomber
Washington April 20 (IANS) Authorities in the US state of Alabama have executed an 83-year-old man found guilty of murdering a judge and a lawyer with bomb attacks in 1989.
Walter Moody became the oldest prisoner to be executed in the US since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976 according to figures compiled by the Death Penalty Information Centre.
He was put to death by lethal injection at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore on Thursday evening.
It was the eighth execution to be carried out in the US in 2018 CNN reported.
Moody was convicted in 1991 on federal murder charges and then again in 1996 on state charges for killing US Circuit Court judge Robert Vance.
He had also murdered Georgia civil rights lawyer Robert Robinson.
"Moody has spent the better part of three decades trying to avoid justice. Tonight Moody s appeals finally came to a rightful end. Justice has been served " Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said.
Moody s attorneys had appealed to the Supreme Court after Alabama s high court denied his petition for a stay of execution the US media reported.
He was convicted in Alabama for sending a bomb that killed Vance. Moody according to prosecutors sought revenge on the court and the judge because they had previously refused to overturn his conviction in a 1972 bomb possession case.
Moody turned down a final meal from the state and instead ate two Philly cheese steak sandwiches and drinking two Dr Peppers during a visit with friends and attorneys at the correctional facility before being executed.
The octogenarian had always maintained his innocence. However he gave no final statement at his execution prison officials said.
Previously Mississippi man John Nixon 77 was the oldest man to be executed in the US in modern times. He was put to death in 2005 having been convicted of murdering a woman in 1985.
--IANS
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