US carries out first federal execution

A former white supremacist convicted of the 1996 murders of a family of three was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday in the first federal execution in the US in 17 years.

Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, was pronounced dead at 8:07 am (1207 GMT) at Terre Haute prison in the Midwestern state of Indiana, the Justice Department said.

Lee was the first of three federal inmates scheduled to die this week after US President Donald Trump ordered a resumption of capital punishment at the federal level.

Lee and another man, Chevie Kehoe, were convicted in Arkansas in 1999 of the murders of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife, Nancy, and her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah.

AFP