Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 31st Jan. UN human rights experts on Tuesday condemned the recent execution of an American inmate by nitrogen gas inhalation. The method has been used for the first time ever, in a press statement issued in New York.
The experts noted that Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was executed in the southern state of Alabama on 25 January. He had been convicted of murder in 1988.
The statement said “Alabama’s use of Kenneth Smith as a human guinea pig to test a new method of execution amounted to unethical human experimentation and was nothing short of State-sanctioned torture,”.
“The use, for the first time in humans and on an experimental basis, of a method of execution that has been shown to cause suffering in animals is simply outrageous.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and the experts have jointly deplored Smith’s execution.
They had called for a stay of execution, noted that nitrogen gas inhalation causes a painful and humiliating death. Additionally, experimental executions by gas asphyxiation are contrary to international law.
They said Mr. Smith took over 20 minutes to die “instead of the ‘swift, painless and humane’ death predicted by authorities, who defended the use of the method despite the lack of scientific evidence”.
According to the witnesses reported that he writhed and convulsed on the gurney, gasping for air and pulling on the restraints.
Mr. Smith had spent decades on death row after being convicted in the murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett in March 1988.
His first death sentence in 1989 was dismissed on procedural grounds three years later.
The experts noted that Mr. Smith was tried again in 1996, when the jury voted unanimously to sentence him to life in prison.
The trial judge overrode the decision and imposed the death penalty instead, the experts stressed
Alabama abolished the practice of judicial overrides in 2017 yet without retroactive effects. Mr. Smith survived a botched execution by intravenous injection in 2022 that lasted hours and reportedly amounted to torture.
The rights experts reiterated their grave concern that other US states were taking steps to use nitrogen gas inhalation as a method of execution.
They called for a ban and reminded the US of its obligations under international treaties that uphold civil rights and prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
They said “The gruesome execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith is a stark reminder of the barbaric nature of the death penalty and a powerful moment to intensify calls for its abolition in the United States of America and the rest of the world,”.
The experts are all UN Special Rapporteurs appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Their mandates cover the issues of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the independence of judges and lawyers and the right to enjoy the highest standard of physical and mental health.
