Published by: World Tibet Network News, Thursdsay, August 8, 1996

LITTLE ROCK, Aug 7 (Reuter) - Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee met on Wednesday with a group of clergymen opposed to the death penalty but refused to block the execution of an inmate whose conversion to Buddhism has stirred worldwide interest.

William Frankie Parker, 41, was set to die by lethal injection at Arkansas' Cummins Prison on Thursday at 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT Friday).

"The ministers hoped the Governor would commute the sentence, which he is not going to do," said Jim Harris, a press assistant to Huckabee.

"Parker killed two people and attempted to kill two more, including a police officer," Harris said.

Parker was sentenced to death for murdering the parents of his former wife, whom he took hostage and shot. He also shot and wounded his ex-wife Pam Parker and an Arkansas policeman.

Parker's death row conversion to Buddhism has drawn pleas for executive clemency from the Dalai Lhama of Tibet and Mother Theresa, the Roman Catholic nun who works with Calcutta's poor.

Also supporting a commutation of Parker's sentence is film actor Richard Gere, a prominent American Buddhist.

"Obviously, Frankie did something very bad. He killed two people. But I don't think it makes anything better for those people, for their families or for Frankie that he be killed," Gere said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Parker's spiritual adviser, Kevin Malone of New York, flew to Arkansas to counsel Parker in his last hours.

"The Frankie Parker who was placed in the Arkansas prison system is no longer there," Malone said. "This is an entirely different human being whose mind functions in an entirely different realm."

Malone, who uses the Buddhist name Kibutzo Shinto, said he had no doubt that Parker's spiritual conversion was genuine.