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Arizona execute man with drug supplied by British company
A man has been executed in Arizona using a drug manufactured in Britain, prompting calls from campaigners for the company to be named.
By Victoria Ward
Published: 3:38PM BST 27 Oct 2010
Jeffrey Landrigan Photo: AP
Jeffrey Landrigan, who was sentenced for murder in 1989, was killed by lethal injection, the US state's first execution in three years. His execution had been delayed after objections that the drug was not US approved.
Defence lawyers argued that the state's failure to reveal its supplier of sodium thiopental meant that it might not meet US standards and could cause unnecessary suffering. But the ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court after Arizona confirmed the drug had been manufactured in Britain.
Tim Nelson, Chief Deputy Attorney General, said: "This drug came from a reputable place. There's all sorts of wild speculation that it came from a third-world country, and that's not accurate." The one approved US supplier, Hospira, which is based in Illinois, has temporarily run out of stock, blaming a shortage of raw materials.
As a result, executions in several states have been delayed. The British manufacturer will not necessarily know that the drug was used for an execution as it may have been exported through a wholesaler. The drug is also licensed for use as an anaesthetic.
But Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, said: "When the veil of secrecy is inevitably sundered, this British corporation should be reminded that the medical profession boasts of a Hippocratic oath, not a hypocritical one." Sodium thiopental is used for legal injections in 34 states.
It renders an inmate unconscious before a second drug paralyses him and a third drug stops his heart. Landrigan's execution, for the murder of Chester Dyer, who was beaten and strangled to death with an electrical cord during a robbery, was Arizona's first in three years.
