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Ecuador Demands Return Of Man Convicted In 4 Killings

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The Associated Press

Published: January 29, 2009

QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador's government has hired a lawyer to appeal the sentences against a citizen on Florida's death row and called again Thursday for the U.S. to return the man to the South American country.

Businessman Nelson Serrano, 68, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006 for killing four people in 1997 in a central Florida factory. A judge imposed four death sentences.

Serrano, a dual Ecuadorean and U.S. citizen, was arrested by Ecuadorean officials and then deported in 2002 at the request of the U.S., a move the current government says was unconstitutional and illegal.

An Ecuadorean official concluded at the time that Serrano had repeatedly entered the country under his U.S. passport and was an American eligible for deportation.

The United States' only legal route to removing Serrano from his home country was through extradition, Interior Minister Fernando Bustamante said Thursday.

Ecuador has no death penalty and will not extradite fugitives who are facing capital punishment in other countries.

Bustamante said that the "illegal" nature of Serrano's deportation "nullifies" the Florida court ruling and announced that the government has retained lawyer Mary Silvers, an expert on death penalty appeals.

It is not clear if Ecuador would free Serrano if he were returned or open a separate judicial process there.

Serrano was convicted of killing Frank Dosso, 35; daughter Diane Patisso, 28; and two business associates, George Gonsalves, 69; and George Patisso Jr., 26, at a factory that makes garment conveyor systems in the city of Bartow. Prosecutors said it was Serrano's ouster as president of the company that led him to kill.

Serrano denies involvement in the killings.

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