All news

UN opposes execution of US prisoner using pure nitrogen - Office of Secretary General

The UN stands against all and any use of capital punishment, the spokesman Stephane Dujarric says

UN, January 13. /TASS/. The UN opposes the plan of the US state of Alabama to execute a prisoner using pure nitrogen for the first time on January 25, Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General said on Friday.

"We stand against all and any use of capital punishment," he said when asked to comment on the Alabama decision.

Inmate Kenneth Smith was convicted of the contract killing of a woman in 1988. Together with an accomplice, he received $1,000 for the murder. The accomplice was executed in 2010. There was an attempt to execute Smith by lethal injection but he survived it.

As Smith's lawyers note, this method of execution is brutal. According to them, state authorities are using their client to test a new method of execution.

Although execution using pure nitrogen is legal in three US states, it has never been used before. Alabama authorities only approved the method in 2018 due to a shortage of the drugs used in lethal injections.