A man convicted of murder will be executed this week in Alabama, United States, by delivery of nitrogen gas, a new method that the United Nations has equated to “torture.”

Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, will be executed next Thursday at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, starting at 1 a.m. Eastern Time (6 a.m. GMT), using nitrogen hypoxia, a method never used in the United States. .

The last gas execution in the United States took place in 1999, when a man convicted of murder was given hydrogen cyanide gas.

In 2023, 24 executions were carried out in the United States, all by lethal injection.

Smith spent 30 years on death row after being found guilty of murdering a pastor’s wife in 1989. The method, with nitrogen gas, is used “to kill pigs” and causes great suffering to the prisoner, as Mario Marazziti, co-founder of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, was denounced today in Rome.

This American prisoner already had a failed execution attempt in 2022, as the executioner “tried for more than four hours” to find the right vein to administer the lethal injection, without success.

Nelson Serrano’s lawyer denounces the prison threats against the Ecuadorian who is on death row in the United States.

If the execution takes place, the prisoner will be forced to breathe only nitrogen, which will deprive his brain and other tissues of oxygen, resulting in his death.

“Veterinarians do not want this method to be used to kill animals,” although today it is “used mainly on pigs, with prior anesthesia,” something that, the anti-death penalty activist assured, will not be used on the prisoner. .

Alabama is one of three states in the United States that have approved the nitrogen hypoxia method, which consists of administering this gas through a mask until the body runs out of oxygen.

UN opposition

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office in Geneva, last week urged the state of Alabama to abandon plans to execute Smith through that “incipient and unproven” method that could constitute “torture” under international law .

“The death penalty is incompatible with the fundamental right to life,” Shamdasani said, a position based on the UN.

The state of Alabama defended its decision in court, arguing that it “may be the most humane method of execution ever invented.”

Smith had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution, but the nation’s highest court denied the request without comment on Wednesday.

The implementation of the use of nitrogen gas is a response to the difficulties in acquiring the drugs that constitute lethal injections by the states that still maintain the death penalty, due to the refusal of pharmaceutical companies to allow them to be used for be used for this purpose.

Despite ongoing legal disputes, Alabama state authorities have been working for years on a protocol to carry out executions using this new method.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 53% of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, the lowest level since 1972.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 states in the United States, while the governors of six others (Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee) have suspended its use. (JO)