Man convicted of van driver's murder to be executed in Alabama

A 64-year-old man convicted of the murder of a delivery van driver during a 1998 robbery is to be executed in the southern US state of Alabama on Thursday.

Keith Edmund Gavin is to be put to death by lethal injection at a prison in Atmore for the shooting of William Clayton, a 68-year-old father of seven.

The execution is scheduled to take place after 7:00 pm Eastern Time (2300 GMT), according to prison officials.

Clayton was killed in the town of Centre while withdrawing money from an ATM to take his wife out to dinner, according to court documents.

Gavin, who maintains his innocence, was on parole at the time after serving nearly 17 years in prison for a previous murder in Illinois.

There have been two executions in Alabama this year including the first-ever in the United States using nitrogen gas.

The US Supreme Court granted a temporary halt earlier this week to the planned execution in Texas of another convicted murderer.

Ruben Gutierrez, 47, was sentenced to death for taking part in the 1998 killing of Escolastica Harrison, an elderly manager of a mobile home park in the city of Brownsville, which borders Mexico.

His lawyers have argued that there was no physical evidence of Gutierrez's presence at the scene, and that he confessed when police threatened to arrest his wife and place his children in foster care.

After his appeals were rejected in lower courts, Gutierrez appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted a temporary stay on Tuesday while it considers whether to take up the case.

There have been nine executions in the United States this year.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 states, while six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) have moratoriums in place.