“Extremely cruel method”: the EU responded to the execution of a prisoner in the US by nitrogen inhalation
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The European Union has condemned the US’s first use of the death penalty using nitrogen.
As stated in the statement of the press secretary of the EU, the death penalty is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate denial of human dignity. It “does not act as a deterrent to crime and is the highest measure of punishment, which makes miscarriages of justice irreversible.”
The execution took place by forcing the condemned to breathe nitrogen, which led to nitrogen hypoxia.
“According to leading experts, this method is particularly cruel, and the inmate has already survived a failed attempt to execute him by lethal injection in November 2022“, said the spokesperson of the EU.
| Photo: KonLangLen/Depositphotos |
He added that 196 death row inmates were acquitted in the US and called for the abolition of the death penalty.
Currently, 29 US states have either abolished the death penalty or have implemented a moratorium on executions.
The EU is concerned that, despite a steady overall decline in the use of the death penalty in the US, the number of executions increased in 2023: 24 people were put to death in five states.
“We call on states that still use the death penalty to adopt a moratorium and move toward its abolition, in line with the global trend“, the EU spokesman emphasized.
It will be recalled that on January 25, the world’s first execution by nitrogen inhalation was carried out in the state of Alabama (USA). This method was applied to 58-year-old prisoner Kenneth Eugene Smith.
Smith was convicted of the contract killing of a preacher’s wife in 1988. Prosecutors said he and another man each received $1,000 from her husband. He was “up to his ears in debt”, and in this way he wanted to receive an insurance payment.
Read also: In Japan, a man who set fire to an anime studio was sentenced to death, killing 36 people
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