OAN's Brooke Mallory
2:38 PM – Thursday, January 4, 2024
United Nations officials amid controversy claiming nitrogen gas execution of Alabama prisoners was an “untested” method that could subject prisoners to torture and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” People are sounding the alarm over the planned executions.
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As part of the Human Rights Council's Special Process Program, a panel of United Nations officials said in a report released Wednesday that the planned execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith is the first of its kind. It stressed that it could cause “significant distress”.
It's been nearly two months since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the Yellowhammer state can execute prisoners by nitrogen hypoxia. This type of execution tactic deprives prisoners of the oxygen they clearly need to keep their bodies functioning. 78% of the air that humans breathe is made up of nitrogen.
“We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia results in painful and humiliating deaths,” the experts said in a statement, adding that experimental executions by gas asphyxiation, similar to nitrogen hypoxia, “are a form of torture and other cruelties.” , likely to violate the prohibition on inhuman and degrading conduct,” it added. punishment. “
Smith's execution is scheduled for January 25th.thAlabama became the first state in the nation to use nitrogen gas executions.
Smith was one of two people convicted of the hired murder of Elizabeth Sennett in Colbert County, Alabama, in 1988.
An appeal by the state attorney general's office seeking Smith's execution was granted in an Alabama ruling last year.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) echoed the news, criticizing the United Nations' “misguided” efforts, saying, “China commits genocide while killing thousands of people a year, including non-violent criminals. unjustly executed,” Rogers wrote. “Understandably, the United Nations Human Rights Council is committed to blocking a humane method of execution for the convicted murderer in Alabama.”
Sennett's family endured “35 years of dishonesty until justice was served,” according to the Alabama attorney general, who cited this in his appeal last year. Supporters of the nitrogen gas law claim that executions are painless.
United Nations officials said they had petitioned federal authorities in the United States and Alabama to postpone Smith's execution and other scheduled executions until the execution process could be more closely investigated.
In 2022, Alabama had already halted executions due to reports that the use of lethal injection had gone awry.
Smith had challenged the state's choice to execute him by lethal injection, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the state's favor last year. However, the Supreme Court decided not to review a lower court ruling that upheld Smith's right to die by lethal gas injection rather than by injection.
Alabama had approved the use of nitrogen gas at the time of the decision the previous year, but procedures for its use had not yet been established.
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