Despite an international delegation's plea for clemency, Georgia's parole board decided yesterday not to stop the execution of Bermuda born Tracy Housel.

Housel, 43, who was convicted of the murder of Jean Drew, a Georgia mother he had met in a restaurant, has spent 16 years on death row and is scheduled to die by lethal injection this evening.

British MP and criminal lawyer Vera Baird, activist Sister Helen Prejean, European diplomats, Housel's family members and former Bermuda resident Gary Proctor were among those who faced the five member Georgia parole board to appeal for his life.

"It's unspeakable. It makes me so sad and so angry," said Sister Helen, author of the book Dead Man Walking and subject of a movie of the same name. "It's just going to make me redouble my efforts."

Housel's case gained international profile because his birth in Bermuda made him a British Overseas Territories Citizen, and it is the policy of the British Government is to oppose the death penalty internationally and to make representations on behalf of British nationals.

"We in Britain do not have the death penalty, so my opposition will be as a matter of principle," said Vera Baird at a media conference shortly before the hearing. "Beyond that, though, there are things (about the case) that shock the conscience."

Besides a stand on principle against the death penalty, Housel's advocates also emphasised the fact that he was brain damaged at the time of the killing and that a number of irregularities occurred during the trial.

They cite the fact that the jury was allowed to hear evidence that he had committed other crimes even though he had not been charged with those crimes.

Bermuda has also abolished the death penalty and Britain's Minister for the Overseas Territories Baroness Amos asked the Bermuda Government some weeks ago to assist in its efforts to have the Georgia Parole Board commute the sentence to one of life imprisonment.

The Cabinet Office is yet to say how it responded to the request. But Attorney General Dame Lois Browne Evans, a long time opponent of the death penalty, wrote to the Board in her own personal capacity.

Sister Helen told The Royal Gazette that it had been a "very sad day" full of "layers of tragedy" when asked to give her impressions of the hearing.

"We're in Georgia, the bible belt - I mean the death belt - and we had a bunch of Brits, we had European Union. We had people describing how they don't have the death penalty in Europe. We had an MP (Vera Baird) who spoke in an impassioned way. Then we had the presentation of Tracy's life, of the abuse he had been through, the brain damage and the hypoglacemia, as well as the lawyer who had defended him in the trial who basically admitted he did not know what he was doing."

Mr. Housel's lawyer, she said, admitted his own incompetence during the 1986 trial, that he had little resources with which to conduct the defence and that mitigating circumstances were not presented to the jury.

"He said he had made a terrible mistake and was sure that's why Tracy got the death penalty... Tracy's son (who also gave a presentation) breaks down crying."

Housel's mother was present and had to listen to presentations on a history of child abuse, she added.

"Sometimes they (the parents) would both beat up on Tracy. Of course, she had to listen to all of this. The whole thing was just layer upon layer of tragedy."

Sister Helen added that arguments that the death penalty had been abolished in Europe may not have helped their cause.

"After Vera Baird had given her impassioned speech. One of the board members said you need to be sensitive to us - (that) our people want the death penalty. I don't think it did us any good and it might have done us some harm."

She continued: "I tried to appeal to them that they had mitigating circumstances that the jury never got to hear and that their mandate was to grant clemency."

She said she also quoted from the Papal Nuncio (ambassador) in the US who wrote on behalf of Pope John Paul II asking for mercy. Nothing worked.

"A little after 3 (p.m.) we heard they had turned Tracy down," Sister Helen added.

A "pretty angry" Mr. Proctor, who quit his job here as a lawyer to work as a volunteer on Housel's case, said he did not have much to say.

"We went up against a loaded deck and lost." He spent much of the day in prison with Housel after the hearing and was still with him when the decision came.

"Words fail me to describe how badly Tracy's taking it. I can't blame him really."

Lawyers are working on last minute appeals "but none of us are really hopeful". He said most of the parole board members were disinterested.

"Most questions came from one chap - Jean Walker. If you do a search you'd find his secretary suing for sexual harassment. Not exactly the kind of person you'd want to have make a life or death decision."