His execution by lethal injection failed in 2022. Now an American sentenced to death in 1996 will be murdered with nitrogen in the state of Alabama. But UN human rights experts are concerned about its ‘experimental’ nature.
“We fear that nitrogen hypoxia will lead to a painful and humiliating death,” four independent UN experts said in Geneva on Wednesday. They also believe that “experimental executions by gas asphyxiation would likely violate the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.”
Death from lack of oxygen
When executed by hypoxia, death is caused by a lack of oxygen. Nitrogen makes up 78 percent of the air and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. Proponents of the new method believe that this type of execution is painless. But that is controversial.
According to them, Alabama plans to carry out the death sentence against Kenneth Smith in this way on January 25. His execution by lethal injection was supposed to have taken place in November 2022, but was canceled after several attempts to locate two venous lines in the prisoner failed.
Murder of the pastor’s wife
Smith was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder-for-hire of the pastor’s wife, Elizabeth Sennett. Her husband paid the convict and another man $1,000 each to kill her in 1988. The pastor was heavily in debt, had an extramarital affair and wanted to collect on the insurance. The victim was beaten and stabbed.
Source: Krone
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