VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be stripped of citizenship in his native Austria for approving the execution of a convicted killer, a leading Austrian politician said Saturday.
Peter Pilz, a top official with the environmentalist Green Party, said the Austria-born Schwarzenegger no longer is worthy of citizenship in his homeland because he broke the law by clearing Donald Beardslee's execution on Wednesday.
Capital punishment is illegal here, and Schwarzenegger -- who holds dual U.S.-Austrian nationality -- should be stripped of his Austrian passport for "heavily damaging the reputation of the republic," Pilz said.
He told Austrian media he sent the Interior Ministry a letter formally requesting that the government begin the process of terminating Schwarzenegger's citizenship.
"Schwarzenegger is possibly the most prominent Austrian abroad, and he shapes the picture of Austria," Pilz said.
"I don't want that picture shaped by someone who commits state murder. That does not correspond to the political culture of this country."
Calls to the Interior Ministry seeking comment went unanswered Saturday.
It appeared unlikely that the Greens, a leftist opposition party which holds just a handful of seats in parliament, would persuade Austria's conservative government to revoke Schwarzenegger's citizenship.
Rarely, if ever, has Austria taken the extraordinary step of stripping someone of citizenship. Not even Kurt Waldheim, the former Austrian president and U.N. secretary-general linked to Nazi war crimes, had his citizenship revoked.
Beardslee, 61, convicted of killing two women over a drug deal almost a quarter-century ago, became the first inmate put to death by California three years when he was given a lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/22/austria.schwarzenegger.ap/index.html