Judge blocks execution

A US District Court judge on Wednesday blocked the scheduled execution of a convicted murderer after his lawyers claimed he is suffering from dementia and does not know why he is to be put to death.

Wesley Ira Purkey, 68, of Kansas, had been scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday at Terre Haute prison in the midwestern state of Indiana.

Purkey was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to death for the 1998 rape, murder and dismemberment of a 16-year-old girl, Jennifer Long. He was also found guilty of beating an 80-year-old woman to death with a hammer.

AFP