GUATEMALA: FIRST EVER EXECUTION BY LETHAL INJECTION CARRIED OUT

11. Mid shot of prison employees looking at life-monitor and tearing off printout

10. Close up of hand strapped and pan to face

4. Close up of face, pull out to wide shot

Natural Sound

The first ever execution by lethal injection in Guatemala was administered to a self-confessed multiple assassin on Tuesday.

Manuel Martinez Coronado admitted to killing seven members of a family, including four minors in May 1995.

He was allowed one last wish, which was to marry the mother of his three children 26 hours before his death.

On Tuesday, Manuel Martinez Coronado was the first person ever to be executed by lethal injection in Guatemala.

Outside the Pavon prison, 16(k) kilometres southeast of Guatemala City, a throng of photographers and reporters fought for the best pictures of the death chamber.

Meanwhile, Martinez's family consoled each other in a nearby cell as his life came to an end.

Martinez was strapped to a special bed and then sedated with the lethal mixture containing three components.

He died seven minutes later.

Present at the execution was the judge who sentenced him, a forensic doctor, a Human Rights representative and the chief prison warden.

The man who administered the lethal injection has not been publicly named.

On 21 July 1997, Martinez was sentenced to death by execution after admitting to murdering seven members of the same family in May 1995.

They were all from the village of El Palmar, 110(k) kilometres east of Guatemala City.

The blood bath happened after a dispute with a neighbouring family over a small plot of land.

Four children aged 12, nine, five and two were killed with their parents and an elderly aunt.

One brother, Jaime Arias Miguel, then aged 11 survived to identify the assassins.

Martinez' father was also convicted, but because he is old, he was sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death row.

His brother, who is also a suspect, is still on the run from the law.

Martinez married the mother of his three children only 26 hours before being executed in a small cell next to the death chamber.

The mother of the murderer, said that during his short term on death row, Martinez had become an Evangelical Christian and that he had asked God for forgiveness.

The last execution to take place in Guatemala was in September 1996.

The firing squad needed extra rounds of bullets to kill two prisoners charged with the rape and murder of a four year old girl.

Thousands of horrified Guatemalans watched the recorded event on television.

Opinion polls frequently show that 90 per cent of Guatemalans accept the death sentence for killers and kidnappers although some Human Rights representatives in Guatemala disagree.