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Execution chamber in the maximum security facility in Idaho (here in 2011)
Photo: Jessie L. Bonner / AP
The planned execution of a convicted serial killer in the US state of Idaho was stopped at the last minute due to medical problems.
As the local correctional authority announced, the medical team was unable to provide the 73-year-old with the access necessary for the lethal injection.
Therefore, the execution of the death sentence was stopped after around an hour.
Because of the complications, the enforcement order will expire, it said.
The condemned man was therefore taken back to his cell.
“The state will examine the next steps,” said the authority.
According to the prison director, the medical staff tried to establish access eight times without success.
The death sentence was imposed after the now 73-year-old beat his cellmate to death in 1981 with a sock filled with batteries.
At that time he was already in prison for five other murders.
The convict himself claims to have committed dozens of murders.
His execution would have been the first in the state of Idaho in twelve years.
In recent years, executions have repeatedly failed in the USA.
Most of the time, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were difficulties in inserting the intravenous line through which the lethal drugs are administered.
aeh/AFP