Name Manuel Coronado | ||
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Died February 10, 1998, Escuintla, Guatemala | ||
Manuel Martínez Coronado (d. February 10, 1998) was a Guatemalan mass murderer, convicted for the killing of seven people on 17 May 1995. Coronado was sentenced to death for the murders, and was executed in 1998, the first execution by lethal injection in Guatemala.
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Background
Manuel Martínez Coronado was a member of the Chortí ethnic group who worked as a peasant farmer.
Murders
Coronado murdered seven members of the same family on 17 May 1995. However, later claims made by Amnesty International highlighted that evidence indicated that his stepfather may have been the real killer.
Arrest and execution
Coronado was arrested and charged with multiple homicide, and sentenced to death. Despite pleas from Amnesty International to overturn the verdict, the Guatemalan authorities claimed that his sentenced would be upheld, and Coronado was executed by lethal injection on February 10, 1998. The execution of Coronado was broadcast live on television in Guatemala. After the poison was administered, it took eighteen minutes for him to die, and his wife and children were heard crying in the background throughout. Coronado was the first Guatemalan executed by lethal injection, which had recently been legalized by the government.
Criticism
Amnesty International, which had protested his death sentence, complained that doctors carrying out the execution was a "breach of medical ethics" and that Guatemalan authorities refused to release the identities of the healthcare workers who carried out the execution.