Manila - A Philippine judge set the date yesterday for the country's first execution in over two decades, but ordered prison officials not to divulge it to the condemned man until just hours before his execution.
The trial judge, Ms Thelma Ponferrada, fixed the date - the second she had set for convicted child rapist, Leo Echegaray, in recent weeks - a day after the Supreme Court all but dashed his hopes of avoiding death by reversing its previous order to stay the execution.