France urges US not to execute mentally disabled man

France on Tuesday urged the United States not to execute an African American man diagnosed with a mental disability who was condemned to death for killing a fellow prisoner.

Warren Hill, 52, was sentenced to death earlier this month in the southeastern state of Georgia despite a US Supreme Court decision banning the execution of convicts with intellectual disabilities.

He is due to be executed on Wednesday.

"France is concerned by the case of Warren Hill, a US citizen with mental disabilities," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

"We hope a solution can be found to avoid an execution," he said, noting that there are "international guarantees" against applying to death penalty to people suffering from mental disabilities.

The US Supreme Court ruled against the execution of prisoners with mental disabilities in 2002, but has left each state with the authority to determine what constitutes mental disability. Georgia maintains mental retardation must be proved "beyond a reasonable doubt".

A Georgia judge ruled that Hill was intellectually disabled, but to a lesser degree than the state requires to preclude the death penalty.