Nitrogen gas has previously only killed animals in the United States. The UN Human Rights Council condemns the use of the method.
The US state of Alabama plans to carry out its first execution by nitrogen gas this week. In 1989, he was sentenced to death for murder Kenneth Eugene Smith is scheduled to be executed between Thursday and Friday morning.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided Wednesday not to grant a stay of execution in the case that Smith had requested.
In an execution with nitrogen gas, the condemned is forced to inhale the gas, which causes hypoxia, i.e. an oxygen-free state in the body. No people have been executed with nitrogen gas before in the United States.
The method has been used in the country to kill animals, but the local veterinary organization recommends drugging even large animals before gassing them. In Alabama, death row inmates are not given sedatives prior to execution.
An attempt was made to execute Smith’s sentence as early as 2022 using a lethal injection. At that time, prison officials were unable to find a vein to administer the injection.
According to the UN Human Rights Council, the method may amount to torture or other cruel or humiliating punishment in violation of the Human Rights Act. Representative of the Human Rights Council Ravina Shamdasani urged the state of Alabama to abandon its plans to execute Smith by a “new and untested method.” Shamdasani also stated that the UN is generally against the death penalty.
Smith received the death sentence for the 1988 murder of a pastor’s wife. The pastor, who later committed suicide, had hired Smith to kill his wife.
Source: AFP