Schwarzenegger Faces 'tookie' Backlash in Austria

Already in trouble with voters in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger was facing a backlash in his native Austria yesterday over his decision last week to allow the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams.

Leftwing councillors in Graz yesterday announced that they are seeking to strip Mr Schwarzenegger - who was born and grew up near the town - of his Austrian citizenship. In a further protest, they also want to rename the local sports complex, now the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium, as the Tookie Williams Stadium.

"People have had enough of him," Peter Pilz, a Green MP in the regional parliament of Steiermark, told the Guardian yesterday. "He was an idol across Austria. But since the death of 'Tookie' Williams, the public mood has changed.

"Stripping him of his citizenship would send a message to opponents of the death penalty in the US. Austria has signed up to the European human rights convention, which forbids the death penalty. For us, he has committed a state crime."

The rightwing governor of California - who left Austria at 21 - has both American and Austrian nationality. Previous attempts to strip him of his passport have lacked the support of conservatives. But in October the Social Democrats won power in the Steiermark parliament, the region in which Graz is located, giving the centre-left a majority for the first time.

In a pre-emptive strike on Monday, however, Mr Schwarzenegger sent a letter to Graz's mayor announcing that he wanted to sever all his links with the town. "Graz will not have any problems in the future with my decisions as governor of California, because officially nothing connects us any more," he wrote.

Adding that he still considered himself "Austrian with all my heart", he went on: "The death penalty is law here and I have to uphold the law of the land and the will of the people."

He was returning a ring given to him in 1999 when Graz made him an honorary citizen, he said, and withdrawing permission for the football stadium to use his name. "Since the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me," Mr Schwarzenegger wrote.