China News Service, January 26 (Xinhua) According to comprehensive foreign media reports, on the evening of the 25th local time, the US state of Alabama used nitrogen asphyxiation to execute a prisoner, becoming the first state in the country to use nitrogen to execute a death row prisoner.
According to the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), the executed prisoner was named Kenneth Smith. During the execution, he was tied to a gurney and forced to breathe nitrogen through a mask device. He eventually died of hypoxia.
Media witnesses said Smith’s final words were: “Alabama took humanity a step backwards tonight.”
"I will leave with love, peace and light," he added. "Thank you everyone for supporting me, I love you."
According to Reuters, death penalty experts said that while the United States and other countries have used toxic gases such as hydrogen cyanide in executions in the past, this is the first time an execution has been carried out through the use of an inert gas to suffocate a person.
According to National Public Radio (NPR), Smith was convicted of a murder in 1988 and was originally scheduled to be executed by intravenous injection in November 2022. However, problems occurred during the first execution and his intravenous injection was got canceled.
Smith's attorneys have since asked the state of Alabama to stop trying to execute Smith by lethal injection and to use nitrogen gas. The state later approved the death penalty by nitrogen asphyxiation.
But ahead of Smith's second execution date, his attorneys raised objections to the use of nitrogen, claiming the method was untested and would be unconstitutional. However, state and federal courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected his appeal.
On January 3, local time, United Nations experts warned that using nitrogen to carry out executions may constitute torture, and stated in a press release, "We are concerned that nitrogen asphyxiation will lead to painful and humiliating deaths." They said that through gas asphyxiation Experimental executions using nitrogen (such as nitrogen) may violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.