PAPAL APPEAL FOR CLEMENCY FOR DEREK ROCCO BARNABEI

VATICAN CITY, SEP 13, 2000 (VIS) - At the end of today's general audience in St. Peter's Square, and just before reciting the Our Father with the pilgrims present, Pope John Paul made the following appeal for clemency for Derek Rocco Barnabei, who is on death row in a prison in Virginia, U.S.A.:

"In the spirit of clemency which is proper to the Jubilee Year, I once again join my voice to all those asking that young Derek Rocco Barnabei be spared his life. I also hope, in a more general way, that there no longer be recourse to capital punishment, given that States today have the means to efficaciously control crime, without definitively taking away an offender's possibility to redeem himself."

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