HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A death-row inmate who had vowed not to go willingly to the death chamber set a fire in his cell Wednesday, hours before he was to be executed.Department of Criminal Justice officials said Roy Lee Pippin piled up trash and ignited it by sticking a wire in an electrical outlet. Officers used a water hose to extinguish the blaze.

Officers brought Pippin 45 miles from death row to the Huntsville Unit, where executions are conducted. There he repeated his intention to not co-operate with officers.

"I promise you, my oath, I won't try to hurt any guards," he said.

Pippin, 51, was to be executed last night for the deaths of two Florida men gunned down in a dispute about missing drug money.

In a recent death row interview, Pippin said he was "going to fight, literally."

The Houston air conditioning contractor acknowledged involvement in a Colombian drug operation that used his business to transport drugs and launder cash, but he insisted he wasn't the triggerman who killed cousins Elmer and Fabio Buitrago almost 13 years ago.

The Miami men were taken to a warehouse rented by Pippin and fatally shot because $2 million in drug proceeds was missing.

Pippin would be the 11th convicted killer executed this year in Texas, the nation's busiest capital punishment state, and the second in as many nights. A San Antonio man, Vincent Gutierrez, received lethal injection Wednesday night for shooting an Air Force captain 10 years ago during a carjacking.

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals denied Pippin's appeal challenging the lethal injection method as unconstitutionally cruel and refused to stop the punishment.

Pippin was disenchanted with his legal help and filed many appeals himself, writing them in his cell and sending them to the courts by dropping them in the mail.

"The odds are astronomical," he said. "But I swear to you, if I was guilty of what they said I did, I wouldn't have a problem at all."

Elmer Buitrago told police Pippin was the gunman, and a man who was tortured at the warehouse and managed to flee testified against him.

Pippin blamed the slayings on others in the drug ring.

"I was under duress," Pippin said. "They said they were going to kill my family."

"He's got critical words for everybody," said Julian Ramirez, who prosecuted Pippin. "Pippin himself testified, the jury got to hear his tale and explanation and rejected it."