Texas executes Mexican Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas

A Mexican national has been executed in the US state of Texas for fatally beating a former university professor more than 16 years ago.

Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, 44, was executed with lethal injection in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville on Wednesday for killing 49-year-old Glen Lich and attacking his wife in October 1997.

He was the sixth Texas prisoner executed this year and the second in a week to receive lethal injection with a new supply of pentobarbital.

Hernandez-Llanas had escaped prison in Mexico while serving a murder sentence.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the racial ratio of the victims of the death penalty in the US has been striking since the revival of the practice in 1976, with the penalty being disproportionately imposed on ethnic minorities.

Statistics released by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice show that, 11 of the 16 executed prisoners in the state of Texas, which is responsible for nearly 40 percent of all executions in the US since 1976, were African American or Hispanic in 2013.