Pharma firms must put in place execution drug controls as US states push ahead with new ‘cocktail’

Two pharmaceutical companies, one of which describes itself as “one of the biggest…in the UK,” are facing urgent calls to put in place new controls on drugs which could be used in executions.

Akorn, headquartered in Illinois, produces midazolam, a sedative which is currently being used by Florida and Ohio to carry out lethal injections.

Teva, a global company which “suppl[ies] more packs of medicines to the NHS than anyone else,” produces two paralytic agents – rocuronium bromide and vecuronium bromide – which are used by Virginia and Florida respectively as part of their three-drug execution ‘cocktails.’

Although it is not certain that any US state has yet procured the relevant drugs from either of the companies, both have so far failed to put in place distribution controls which would prevent this from happening. This failure stands in contrast to the other US manufacturers of the drugs in question, which have taken simple and effective steps to prevent their medicines being used to fuel executions.

Florida is today [Wednesday] due to carry out its fifth execution using midazolam as part of a three-drug cocktail that was first used on William Happ in October last year; Happ reportedly took twice as long to die as is normal.

Problems with the previously-untested lethal injection drug have been widespread – when Ohio first used midazolam as part of a two-drug combination in January, eyewitnesses reported that the prisoner took nearly half an hour to die.

Just last week, Virginia joined Florida and Ohio, announcing that it too would make midazolam one of the drugs available for use in executions.

Legal charity Reprieve has raised with both Akorn and Teva the need for them to move urgently to put in place effective controls in order to ensure they do not become involved in the death penalty process, but has yet to receive a satisfactory response.

Teva has previously acted to put in place controls on an anaesthetic, propofol, after it emerged that executioners were planning to use it to kill, but has yet to take the same positive action on the two paralysing agents.

Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve’s Death Penalty team said: “Executioners are increasingly turning to these new drugs in order to kill. If Akorn and Teva fail to take swift, decisive action, they face the very real threat of becoming the go-to suppliers of execution drugs across the USA. If Teva and Akorn wish to preserve their reputation as responsible pharmaceutical companies, they must ensure their drugs can only be used to save lives, not end them in executions.”

Source: Reprieve, Feb. 26, 2014

UN must stop funding death penalty in Vietnam, say human rights groups

Three leading anti-death penalty groups have appealed to the United Nations to freeze counter-narcotics aid to Vietnam after the country sentenced 30 people to die for drugs offences.

The call - from Reprieve, Harm Reduction International (HRI) and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty - cites the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) internal human rights guidance, which requires the organisation to cease support for a country if it is feared such support may facilitate executions.

The appeal follows the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland’s withdrawal of aid from Iran’s drug control program, fearing that such assistance could contribute to illegal executions for drugs offences in the country.

“Our organisations have, for many years, been raising concerns about UN assistance for drug enforcement in countries that continue to apply the death penalty for drug offences,” the letter states. “Our concerns stem from the fact that we have demonstrated how UN Office on Drugs and Crime assistance in countries with capital drug laws has contributed to the arrests of people who have later been sentenced to death and executed.”

While there is considerable secrecy around the death penalty in Vietnam, it is known that the country hands out numerous death sentences every year. The Vietnamese government admitted in a 2003 submission to the UN Human Rights Committee that ‘over the last years, the death penalty has been mostly given to persons engaged in drug trafficking.’ Media reports have indicated that around half of all executions are for drug-related crimes.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime aid to Vietnam is extensive and will exceed $5 million for technical assistance, equipment, training and other support. Drug control is the largest component of the country programme.

In recent years, non-governmental human rights organisations have identified people captured as a result of UN drug control assistance who were subsequently executed or sentenced to death.

The groups suggest in the letter that if law enforcement aid cannot be provided with the assurance that it will not contribute to human rights abuses, it can be redirected to health services instead.

Source: Ekklesia, Feb. 11, 2014

Government must help mentally ill British grandfather facing blasphemy death sentence in Pakistan

The UK Government must take immediate steps to protect an elderly, mentally-ill British man sentenced to death today for blasphemy in Pakistan, legal charity Reprieve has said.

Mohammad Asghar (71), from Edinburgh, has a long and documented history of psychological ill health. Just four months before his arrest by the Pakistani authorities in September 2010, Mr. Asghar was sectioned in Scotland under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003, and taken to Royal Victoria Hospital in Edinburgh. He was soon diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and kept under observation at the hospital for over a month. He moved to Pakistan shortly after his release.

Mr Asghar’s legal team at Reprieve have obtained information confirming his mental and physical ill health, and stating that he requires constant care. These include his NHS records and an affidavit signed by Dr. Jane McLennan, Senior Consultant at Royal Victoria Hospital.

Throughout his trial proceedings in Pakistan, Mr Asghar displayed evidence of ill health, becoming extremely agitated during visits by his Reprieve lawyers and suffering from persistent delusions. During this time, he was admitted to a local hospital, but despite clear evidence of mental illness, he was released back to jail, where he shares a cell with several prisoners. In 2010 Mr Asghar suffered from a stroke in 2010 which has left him with persistent left-sided weakness. The medication required is not available to him in jail.

Mr Asghar’s lawyers are to seek an urgent appeal of his sentence.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team, which is supporting Mr Ashgar said:

“One only needs to check Mohammed Asghar’s extensive UK medical records to see that he is a seriously mentally ill man, in dire need of medical care. The evidence is clear that he is unable to defend himself in court. Worse still, he is currently being held in utterly unsuitable conditions in prison, and we are very concerned about his health. The British government must immediately take all necessary steps to secure Mr Asghar’s safety.”

Source: Reprieve, January 24, 2014

Florida authorities today seeking to block crucial evidence of Briton’s innocence

The state of Florida will today seek to block the release of key fingerprint evidence which could demonstrate the innocence of Krishna Maharaj (74), a British businessman sentenced to death in 1987 for murder.

Although Mr Maharaj’s death sentence has since been quashed, due to misconduct by the judge in his original trial, he has now spent over a quarter of a century in prison and is not eligible for release until he is 101 years old.

Mr Maharaj’s lawyers, including Clive Stafford Smith, Director of legal charity Reprieve, are pushing for swathes of new evidence which could clear Mr Maharaj to be considered by the courts. This includes corroboration of admissions by members of a Colombian drug cartel that the cartel was in fact responsible for the murders of Duane and Derrick Moo Young for which Mr Maharaj was convicted.

Today, the 11th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Miami will consider a request from Mr Maharaj’s lawyers that 19 unmatched fingerprints from the crime scene should be compared with those of three cartel members who have been identified as responsible for the murder. The hearing is expected to begin today at 1030 EST (1530 GMT).

However, lawyers for the state of Florida have refused to release the fingerprints to allow for a comparison to take place. The judge is expected to rule today on whether he has the power to require the fingerprints to be compared.

Last week, a former British Government minister said it was “perfectly obvious” that the process faced by Mr Maharaj had been “deeply flawed.” Sir Peter Bottomley MP told ITV News: “We now know cartels were involved; we’re pretty sure that some people in the Miami police may have been involved; and it’s perfectly obvious that the Florida court process was deeply, deeply flawed.”

Commenting, Reprieve’s Executive Director, Clare Algar said: “It is scandalous that the state of Florida is blocking the release of evidence that could prove Kris’ innocence. Not only are they preventing the release of a man who has spent over quarter of a century in prison for a crime he did not commit; they are also in effect protecting the drug cartels who were responsible for the murder. It is essential that the British Government steps up to ensure that their citizen receives a fair hearing, after the string of injustices Kris has suffered.”

Source: Reprieve, January 21, 2014

Former British soldier on death row in the Congo to go on trial for 'murder' of best friend

Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French

Joshua French is accused of killing pal Tjostolv Moland while they were both in prison for another murder

A British man waiting on death row in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will face trial tomorrow, accused of the murder of his cellmate and best friend.

Former soldier Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland were sentenced to death in 2009 after being found guilty of espionage and murder.

Both men maintained their innocence, but were convicted for a 2nd time of the same offences in June 2010 following a military retrial branded a "farce" by campaigners.

But Mr French, who served in the Parachute Regiment, now faces a fresh murder charge after Mr Moland was found dead in the prison cell they shared on August 18 last year, despite an initial inquiry which found he had taken his own life.

Legal charity Reprieve has now written to Prime Minister David Cameron, calling on the British Government to intervene to prevent the trial.

At very least, they say the case should be transferred to a civilian court as it is set to be held in a military court, in violation of the DRC's constitution and international law.

It is understood that discussions had been taking place to transfer Mr French to a prison in Norway, but the latest court proceedings have thrown this in to jeopardy.

Mr French's mother, Kari Hilde, said: "Joshua has already lost his best friend and nearly 5 years of his life. Now he's being falsely accused of murder. How much more will he have to endure before the British Government takes serious action?"

Reprieve said a post-mortem examination conducted jointly by Congolese Police and the Norwegian police agency Kripos confirmed that Mr Moland had committed suicide.

Mr Moland's father has written to the Congolese authorities asking for the charges against Mr French to be dropped but the request has not been answered.

Maya Foa, director of Reprieve's death penalty team, said: "The Government has already tarried too long.

"These are sham charges and the Prime Minister needs to intervene without delay to protect the rights of British citizen, Joshua French. If the trial goes ahead in a military court, Joshua may well be given a death sentence, and all hopes of him leaving the prison alive will be dashed."

Mr French and Mr Moland were convicted of murdering Abedi Kasongo, who had been hired to drive the 2 former soldiers after their motorbike broke down in April 2009. The 47-year-old driver was shot in the head 70 miles (113km) east of Kisangani.

French and Moland denied responsibility. They claimed that unknown gunmen ambushed them in the middle of a dense rainforest.

The trial saw witnesses provide conflicting testimonies and lacked physical evidence, Reprieve said.

It is also claimed that Mr French was beaten and subjected to a mock execution before being forced to sign a confession.

The prosecution told the courts that Mr Moland wrote a letter confessing he was a spy and was responsible for killing Mr Kasongo.

But the letter has never been given to his defence team.

At the retrial, both men were forced to stand for more than 6 hours in heat upwards of 40C (104F), it was claimed.

Mr French, who spent his childhood in Margate, Kent, trained as a British paratrooper before serving in the Norwegian army, where he met Mr Moland.

Both men left the forces in 2007 and worked as security guards in a number of locations.

Source: Daily Mail, January 6, 2014

UK: Pressure on British Government to end support for counter-narcotics programs in Iran and Pakistan

November 18, 2013: The legal and human rights charity Reprieve has called on the United Kingdom to follow Ireland’s lead in stopping support for counter-narcotics programs in Iran and Pakistan which lead to death sentences.

The UK has also contributed several million pounds to Iranian programmes and to similar operations in Pakistan – which also has the death penalty for drug offences, and one of the largest death row populations in the world. However, the British Government has failed to attach conditions to the aid to ensure it does not contribute to the death penalty.

As a result, UK public money used to support counter-narcotics operations in Iran and Pakistan is contributing to death sentences handed down in those countries for drug offences, said the charity.

Following 8 November Ireland’s move, which follows Denmark in ending such support, Reprieve has written to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to urge action on the part of the British Government to end “aid for executions.”

Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve’s Death Penalty Team said: “Britain is rapidly becoming isolated as the only country which thinks supporting the death penalty machines of Iran and Pakistan is acceptable. Hundreds of people have been sentenced to death in these countries in the last few years for non-violent drug offences – helped by millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money.”

Source: Reprieve, Nov. 18, 2013

Pressure on UK after Ireland withdraws Iran counter-narcotics funding over death penalty concerns

Public execution in Iran

Human rights charity Reprieve has called on the UK to follow Ireland’s lead in stopping support for counter-narcotics programmes in Iran and Pakistan which lead to death sentences.

Last Friday, Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs announced that it was ending “funding to UNODC’s Illicit Trafficking and Border Management programme because of human rights concerns related to the use of the death penalty in Iran.”

Ireland had supplied approximately 600,000 Euro to Iranian counter-narcotics programmes – contributing to higher numbers of arrests and sentences in a country where more than three quarters of all executions carried out are for drug offences.

The UK has also contributed several million pounds to Iranian programmes and to similar operations in Pakistan – which also has the death penalty for drug offences, and one of the largest death row populations in the world.

However, the British Government has failed to attach conditions to the aid to ensure it does not contribute to the death penalty, despite Reprieve having raised the problem with them on several occasions. As a result, UK public money used to support counter-narcotics operations in Iran and Pakistan is contributing to death sentences handed down in those countries for drug offences.

Following last week’s move by Ireland, which follows Denmark in ending such support, Reprieve has written to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to urge action on the part of the British Government to end “aid for executions.”

Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve’s Death Penalty Team said: “Britain is rapidly becoming isolated as the only country which thinks supporting the death penalty machines of Iran and Pakistan is acceptable. Hundreds of people have been sentenced to death in these countries in the last few years for non-violent drug offences – helped by millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money. It is worth remembering that both countries also have significant failings in their justice systems, including widespread problems with the use of torture. Britain could end this problem tomorrow by putting in place conditions on the aid that it cannot be used to support the death penalty – why are ministers refusing to do so?”

Source: Reprieve, November 15, 2013

Irish government ceased anti-drug programme funding over Iran death penalty fears

Ireland stopped funding an anti-drug programme in Iran because of concerns that drug traffickers detected under the scheme were being sentenced to death.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said funding to the United Nations-run project ceased because of human rights concerns related to the use of the death penalty.

Between 2005 and 2011 Ireland provided €600,000 to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

By 2011 approximately 80% of the funding was being used to finance a programme in Iran designed to increase drug detections by providing assistance to anti-narcotic police and customs officers.

It has now emerged that Ireland withdrew its funding from the programme at the end of 2011 because of concerns that drug traffickers apprehended under the scheme were being put to death.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs Joe Costello, has said the Irish Government took the decision to withdraw funding from the programme because it "could not be party" to funding the death penalty.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Costello said the Government withdrew funding at the end of 2011 after human rights groups reported on a sharp increase in the use of the death penalty.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) requested aid from EU countries in 2005 to help fight against drug trafficking in Iran and to fund better screening, sniffer dogs and other drug-detecting equipment.

Ireland and a number of other EU countries, including the UK and Norway, agreed to aid the programme to reduce the flow of drugs into the EU.

Steep rise in death penalty

Mr Costello said that in 2011 Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported a steep rise in the use of the death penalty by the Iranian authorities.

He said: "It was almost being used exclusively for drug traffickers, over 80%, so at that point in time we ceased the funding."

Mr Costello said the Government had raised its concerns at the highest level in the UNODC, and with the UN Human Rights Commission, saying that it was incompatible with Ireland's human rights policies.

"We have made it very clear to the UNODC that we could not be party to any funding in relation to where the death penalty is used so liberally and used almost exclusively for drug traffickers.

He also rejected suggestions that it raised issues over the Department of Foreign Affairs oversight of Irish aid.

The organisation Reprieve which campaigns against the death penalty has welcomed the decision.

It says there are around 500 executions in Iran each year, with drug offenders making up a large majority of those put to death.

Source: RTE News, November 8, 2013

UK, France and Ireland complicit in treatment of Iranian man facing second hanging

A number of European countries are complicit in the treatment of an Iranian man sentenced to death on drugs offences, who survived being hanged but will face a second attempt once “his health condition is good enough,” according to Iran’s authorities.

European countries – including the UK, France and Ireland – are linked to the incident as they have provided millions of dollars’ worth of funding to counter-narcotics forces in Iran, without securing the conditions necessary to ensure such assistance does not contribute to the death penalty.

The NGO Iran Human Rights quotes the country’s state broadcaster in saying that “a 37 year old man identified as ‘Alireza M’ was executed by hanging on October 9, convicted of possession of 1 kilograms of crystal,” but was later found to be still breathing. Mohammad Erfan, a judge in the administrative Court has reportedly said that "The man has been sentenced to death…his death sentence will be carried out once the medical staff confirm that his health condition is good enough.”

According to documents unearthed by human rights charity Reprieve, the UK has provided at least £3.6m of support to Iranian counter-narcotics programmes via the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Meanwhile, Ireland has contributed a total of $683,858 to two UNODC counter narcotics projects, both focussed on Iran. One of these projects is on-going, and also funded by France, Japan and Denmark – although the latter country recently announced that it would stop funding projects in Iran due to the death penalty issue.

According to Sky News, more than 1,200 people were executed for drugs offences in Iran between 2007 and 2011 and the proportion of total executions for drug crime rose from 28% to 82% in that time. Children are among the hundreds of people executed for drugs offences every year by Iran.

Commenting, Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve’s Death Penalty Team said: “This shocking case should surely persuade European states to stop funding the death penalty in Iran. By providing support, without securing safeguards that it will not be used to help execute people, taxpayers’ money in Britain, Ireland, France and elsewhere is contributing to the hundreds of executions carried out by Iran for drugs offences. Governments across Europe must follow Denmark’s lead, and stop aid for executions.”

Source: Reprieve, October 16, 2013

Drugs death penalty states must lose aid, says charity

Reprieve charity writes to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg asking that aid to Pakistan's Anti Narcotics Force be halted.

The government is under pressure to stop aid for anti-narcotics programmes in countries where drug traffickers are executed.

The UK leads the way in opposing the use of the death penalty around the world and the government stopped funding Iran's anti-narcotics programme amid concerns that the money was helping to capture drugs mules who were then executed.

Human rights group Reprieve wrote to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, requesting guidance on where the UK's foreign aid was going. The charity's research suggests that Britain is funding and training Pakistan's Anti Narcotics Force.

"As a result of this aid, the ANF and the wider justice system in Pakistan, known to have problems with widespread torture and corruption, is better able to send people to the hangman's noose on drug offences," Reprieve's director, Clive Stafford-Smith, told Clegg. "The ANF itself boasts that 106 prisoners have been sentenced to death on drugs offences in Pakistan alone."

Khadija Shah, a British woman from Birmingham, is potentially facing the death penalty in Pakistan on drugs charges. Her baby, Malaika, who will be one this weekend, has been in prison all her life. Pakistan's new government has promised to end a moratorium on executions.

In his reply, Clegg explained that under guidance issued in 2011 "we can seek assurances that UK co-operation will not lead to torture or prosecutions that result in the death penalty, and have a clear exit strategy if the assurances are not met".

However, Reprieve said it was disappointed that the government had refused to withdraw anti-narcotics funding from countries that practised the death penalty. Such aid was "facilitating the arrest and possible torture and execution of scores of people", said Maya Foa, deputy director of Reprieve's death penalty team.

"It is scandalous that Britain is using taxpayers' money to help other countries send people to the hangman's noose. The 'war on drugs' has failed – instead of stopping the flow of narcotics across international borders, the vast sums of money are facilitating the arrest and possible torture and execution of scores of people. Britain's policy of 'aid for executions' not only undermines the government's stance against the death penalty, but also its obligations to protect its own citizens. It must stop."

Source: The Guardian, September 15, 2013

U.S.: The Reasons Behind the Slow Pace of Executions

Opponents of the death penalty have hit upon an effective tactic: Learn who is making the lethal drugs used in executions and publicly shame them. Now, death penalty states are fighting to make the names of the drugs a state secret.

States that impose the death penalty have been facing a crisis in recent years: They are short on the drugs used in executions.

In California, which has the country's largest death row population, the chief justice of the state supreme court has said there are unlikely to be any executions for 3 years, in part due to the shortage of appropriate lethal drugs. As a result, state prosecutors are calling for a return of the gas chamber.

Ohio, which is 2nd only to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 2010, said it will run out of the drug it uses in executions, pentobarbital, on September 30. The state has 2 men scheduled for execution in November, and 8 more set to be killed after that. Every state's supply of pentobarbital, which has been the principal execution drug, expires at the end of November.

The shortage has forced death penalty states to scramble on two fronts: They are hunting for new suppliers or different drugs to use, and enacting changes to public records laws to keep the names of suppliers and manufacturers of those alternative drugs secret.

The lack of lethal drugs, and the fight over keeping new ones secret, are partly the result of a remarkably effective campaign by opponents of the death penalty, who have, in effect, taken their efforts from the court room to the boardroom.

Each time a state has found a new source for a drug to use in executions, Reprieve, an anti-death penalty organization based in London, in collaboration with death penalty lawyers in the United States, has used freedom of information laws, the local news media, and the powers of persuasion to compel the drug's manufacturer to cut off the supply.

"Who's easier to persuade? The Supreme Court or a corporation that has financial interests?" said Clive Stafford Smith, a British-American, who was a death penalty lawyer in the South for many years before founding Reprieve. "You can make it not worth their while to allow their drugs in executions."

The effectiveness of Reprieve's campaign might well be behind the action taken last year by the state of Texas, which leads the nation in executions.

When a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, Mike Ward, using the state's Public Information Act, sought information about the drugs used in executions, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice fiercely resisted.

Some death penalty states, looking to solve their drug supply problems in a more reliable way, switched drugs - opting for pentobarbital, an anesthetic commonly used in putting animals to sleep. In one legal filing, Patricia Fleming, the agency's assistant general counsel, said revealing the information about the drugs and who made them would invite "financial intimidation and negative publicity," as well as "intensive lobbying" and "unrestrained harassment." Referring to death penalty opponents, Fleming asserted that "essential to their strategy is knowledge of the private companies" that supply the drugs used in lethal injections.

The state attorney general ruled against her, and the department disclosed that it had enough pentobarbital at the time for 23 executions, Ward reported.

Death penalty states are now taking measures to keep anti-death penalty activists, and journalists, from learning the identity of suppliers. A Georgia law enacted in March provides that any information about a "person or entity that manufactures, supplies, compounds, or prescribes the drugs, medical supplies or medical equipment" used in an execution shall be considered a "confidential state secret." Already this year, at least 3 other states - Arkansas, South Dakota, and Tennessee - have amended their public records laws to exempt the names of suppliers from disclosure.

Lethal injection was first proposed as a method of execution in the 19th century by a New York doctor who argued it would be cheaper than hanging. It took 100 years or so for it to be used, but every state that set out to execute people eventually adopted it as the chosen method.

Generally, states have used a 3-drug protocol. The 1st was an anesthetic, sodium thiopental, intended to render the prisoner unconscious so that he or she does not experience the pain and suffering from the drugs to come. The 2nd drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs, making it impossible for the condemned to breathe. Finally, potassium chloride is injected, causing death by cardiac arrest.

In 2008, the Supreme Court, in Baze v. Rees, held that lethal injection did not run afoul of the Eighth Amendment proscription on "cruel and unusual punishment."

But the Court recognized care had to be taken in the killing, so that it wasn't unconstitutionally "cruel." The most critical drug, it emphasized, is the anesthetic.

"It is uncontested that, failing a proper dose of sodium thiopental that would render the prisoner unconscious, there is substantial, unconstitutionally unacceptable risk of suffocation from the administration of pancuronium bromide and pain from the injection of potassium chloride," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

The problems for death penalty states, and the opening for opponents of the death penalty arose when the only company that had governmental approval to make the anesthetic, Hospira, announced in 2011 that it was suspending production because of manufacturing problems at its plant in North Carolina.

Arizona, with 2 executions pending in late 2011, managed to find another source of sodium thiopental; but it didn't want the public to know what it was or where it came from.

When lawyers for Jeffrey Landrigan, one of the men facing death, sought the name of the supplier, Arizona's state attorney general refused to say. Ultimately, on the eve of Landrigan's execution, the attorney general disclosed that the drug had come from Britain. He did so, he said, to allay fears that the drugs had been made in a Third World country and might be contaminated and unsafe.

Tennessee also acknowledged that one of its execution drugs had been made in Britain but refused to divulge the company's name.

At Reprieve, Maya Foa, head of the lethal investigation project, searched through medical and pharmaceutical directories to identify British companies that made sodium thiopental.

Dream Pharma Office Entrance

The British company selling sodium thiopental to Arizona, Tennessee, and other states turned out to be a tiny wholesaler that operated out of the back of a driving school in a working class neighborhood in West London.

It was called Dream Pharma, and it was basically a 1-man operation. It also suddenly became more profitable, as states in America moved to improvise. Stafford Smith, Reprieve's director, wrote a letter to Dream Pharma.

"You have played a significant role and hold responsibility for the potential deaths of many people in the United States," he wrote.

Reprieve sent the letter, along with Dream Pharma's address and phone number, to journalists, and articles appeared in British newspapers and on the BBC. Dream Pharma shut down. The company has declined to comment on its battles with Reprieve or the sale of drugs to the U.S. for executions.

Reprieve then successfully lobbied the British government to ban exports of any drugs to the U.S. for executions. Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in the early 1960s even though polls showed the public supported it.

With Hospira out of the business, states had become fairly desperate. That urgency was captured in government emails and documents obtained by death penalty defense lawyers.

"I have been given a task to obtain some Sodium Pentothal by any means available," the director of the pharmacy in the Nebraska department of corrections wrote to her counterparts in several states. "Does anyone know where I might start looking?"

Kayem Pharma in Mumbai, India

She eventually found a small wholesaler in Mumbai, India, which operated out of 2 rooms on the ground floor of an apartment building; it had no air conditioning, raising doubts about the safety and efficacy of any drugs stored there.

Reprieve again went to work, alerting local reporters and holding a news conference in Mumbai. Officials from India's food and drug administration raided the offices. The company was quickly out of business.

In California, prison officials turned to hospitals throughout the state in search of sodium thiopental, without success. The warden at San Quentin explored buying some in Pakistan.

In the end, Arizona officials solved California's problems, supplying 12 grams of sodium thiopental from its limited supply, a happy exchange according to government emails unearthed by death penalty opponents.

"You guys in AZ are life savers," a California corrections officer wrote to his Arizona counterpart. "Buy you a beer next time I get that way."

Some death penalty states, looking to solve their drug supply problems in a more reliable way, switched drugs - opting for pentobarbital, an anesthetic commonly used in putting animals to sleep. The 1st state to use it for an execution was Oklahoma, in December 2010, and it quickly became 1 of the execution drugs of choice.

This time, however, Reprieve was not up against a small entity. Only one company had government approval to sell pentobarbital in the U.S., and it was a major international pharmaceutical company, Lundbeck Inc. Headquartered in Denmark, it had some 6,000 employees worldwide; its American plant was in Kansas.

When Reprieve approached Lundbeck, in early 2011, the company said it was "adamantly opposed" to its drugs being used in executions - its primary use is in the treatment of epilepsy - but it said it had no control over what happened after its products were sold to wholesalers or distributors.

Reprieve ratcheted up the pressure. Every time Lundbeck's pentobarbital was used in an execution, it issued a press release.

Anti-death penalty activists campaigned against Lundbeck on Twitter and Facebook, shareholders raised questions at the company's annual meeting, a pension fund sold its shares, and the company's place on an annual ranking of Denmark's best companies fell from 17 to 40.

Lundbeck then did what it had said it couldn't do: It devised a distribution system that would keep its pentobarbital from the states that conducted executions.

In April, Hospira announced that it was putting controls in place so that 3 of its drugs - pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, and propofol - would not be used in executions.

Once again, that has left states trying to figure out what to do. In Colorado, a man who killed three teenagers and their boss in a pizza restaurant in 1993 is set to be executed in August. But the state does not have the proper drugs, causing the director of prisons to send an urgent plea to the state's compounding pharmacies. At "compounding pharmacies," pharmacists mix, or compound, the ingredients for drugs on site.

Last October, South Dakota became the 1st state to use a compound drug in an execution, and it did so twice.

Lawyers for one of the men to be executed, Robert Moeller, who had kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 9-year-old girl, filed a lawsuit to obtain information about the supplying pharmacy. The state resisted, and a federal judge sided with the state.

South Dakota was among the states to recently pass a law exempting the names of suppliers of lethal injection drugs from its public records law. The change was necessary, said South Dakota State Senator Jean Hunhoff, "because there's been harassment that has occurred against non-protected manufacturers and pharmacists, thereby causing difficulty for the state in obtaining the necessary chemicals for the lethal injection."

South Dakota's law passed in the state senate without opposition, and the house by a lopsided 60-8.

Source: Pacific Standard Magazine, July 19, 2013

US death row injection comes from Mumbai firm

MUMBAI: Correctional services in the US are buying sodium thiopental from a little-known firm in Borivli (West) for use in lethal injections to execute death sentences.

Kayem Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, at Marian Colony, shipped a 500-gram consignment of the yellow powder, packed in a hefty 25-kg strongbox, on December 8, 2010, to the Nebraska department of correctional services. Sodium thiopental is generally used along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride to create a cocktail with which several states in the US carry out the death sentence by lethal injection. In February this year, Kayem sold another consignment to the South Dakota department of corrections. Executions are yet to be carried out by Nebraska or South Dakota with the drug purchased from Kayem.

Sodium thiopental has been in short supply in the US for about a year after the sole American company that manufactured it ceased production. That has forced American prisons to look abroad. For Nebraska and South Dakota, that search led to the residential Greenfield Cooperative Housing Society in Borivli (West), where Kayem is located. Kayem is a two-room set-up — office and storeroom — with a balcony that doubles as a kitchen.

American prisons have taken flak for purchasing sodium thiopental, used in lethal injections, from overseas. An earlier purchase from the UK apparently degraded by the time it reached American shores, said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, an international charity assisting people around the world facing the death penalty. "The failure of the sodium thiopental purchased in the UK has thus far caused the excruciating and torturous death of three people, one in Arizona and two in Georgia," Smith said.

That prompted a lawyer in Nebraska — where the execution of Carey Dean Moore, 53, is pending — to move court there against the use of the sodium thiopental bought from Kayem. There were also questions raised about whether Kayem is properly registered in the US.

Officials in the Nebraska corrections department did not respond to queries emailed by this newspaper. However, replying to the court in the Nebraska case, state solicitor-general J Kirk Brown said: "The state of Nebraska has duly enacted a new statutory method of execution (lethal injection) and adopted an execution protocol pursuant to the statute, which together satisfy all currently understood requirements of our state and federal constitutions."

Kayem, a small-scale Indian company, may now be in a position to increase its business. "Several American states have now approached us for sodium thiopental," said Navneet Verma, director, Kayem Pharmaceuticals. Verma said he sold the first consignment of 500 grams to the Nebraska correctional services at $3.50 a gram. That works out to $1,750, or around Rs 78,000. When officials at the South Dakota department of corrections evinced interest to buy the same drug, Kayem jacked the price up to $10 a gram.

Derived by mixing sodium and thiopentone, the drug sodium thiopental doesn't really require a huge facility to manufacture and goes for around Rs 35 a gram in the Indian market.

Source: The Times of India, April 5, 2011

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Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck votes to continue supplying pentobarbital for lethal injections

Danish manufacturer Lundbeck has today missed a major and historic opportunity to change the face of the U.S. capital punishment system. By choosing not to put measures in place to prevent its drugs being used to kill people, the company has opened its doors to executioners all over the country.

Lundbeck and its shareholders will now be responsible for potentially hundreds of deaths, as executing states snap up Lundbeck’s pentobarbital, a dangerous and experimental lethal injection drug, to kill prisoners.

Recent shortages of the anaesthetic sodium thiopental have forced prisons in Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio to abandon the standard three-drug protocol used by the majority of executing states, turning instead to pentobarbital as an untested alternative. As the only licensed supplier of pentobarbital in the United States, Lundbeck has the power to halt countless executions by putting in place ‘end-user agreements’ with its customers. Such agreements would stop intermediaries selling Lundbeck’s chemicals on to state penitentiaries, thus preventing Danish drugs from ending up in the veins of condemned prisoners.

According to a source within Lundbeck, the company’s managers were so afraid that their distributors would not like their amended contracts that they decided to avoid taking action.

Lundbeck’s decision will open the floodgates in terms of encouraging executing states to adopt pentobarbital for use in executions. The method is considered highly dangerous because the drug, a sedative, was not designed for executions and has no clinical history of such use.

Reprieve Investigator Maya Foa said:

“By refusing to alter their contracts, Lundbeck has effectively elected to become the primary supplier of drugs for U.S. executions. They have consistently declared their desire not to facilitate capital punishment, and yet presented with the opportunity to turn their words into deeds, they have rejected it. This is an extremely disappointing and cowardly response.”

For more information please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk / 020 7427 1099 / 07931592674.

Background:

In the summer of 2010, the only US manufacturer of execution drug sodium thiopental, Hospira, ceased production of the substance due to a shortage of raw materials, forcing Departments of Corrections in executing states to source their drugs from overseas. Reprieve discovered that a company in Britain was supplying these chemicals and set out to stop British complicity in executions. The approved execution protocol in the United States consists of a cocktail of three drugs: sodium thiopental (also known as thiopental sodium and pentothal) supposedly anaesthetizes the victim, before pancuronium bromide paralyses the muscles and potassium chloride stops the heart.

On 25th October 2010, Jeffrey Landrigan was executed in Arizona using sodium thiopental imported from Britain. The lawyers of Edmund Zagorski, a man who has spent 28 years of his life on death row in Tennessee, subsequently contacted Reprieve with the information that the Tennessee Department of Corrections was seeking to purchase their own supply of sodium thiopental from the same company. Reprieve and lawyers Leigh Day & Co contacted members of the government, asking them to put in place emergency measures to prevent the export of the chemical, and thus stay Edmund's execution. Business Secretary Vince Cable and Jeremy Browne MP on behalf of the FCO declined to take such a step.

Reprieve therefore filed for judicial review of the government’s failure to prevent British complicity in executions. Counsel for the government initially argued that it was not worth imposing an export ban as executing states would source their sodium thiopental from elsewhere, but on 29th November Vince Cable finally agreed to put in place a system of controls making it illegal to export sodium thiopental from the UK to the US.

Shortly afterwards, Reprieve discovered that the British company responsible was Dream Pharma, a tiny pharmaceutical wholesalers operating out of the back of a driving academy in Acton, and that it had already exported a substantial quantity of sodium thiopental – as well as the other two lethal injection chemicals – before the ban came into force. We asked Matt Alavi, the Managing Director of Dream Pharma, for his help in mitigating the damage done by his quest for profit; he had been selling sodium thiopental for between six and twelve times its recommended price, knowing that it was to be used in lethal injections. Mr Alavi refused, and the drugs he supplied have already been used to kill three people: Brandon Rhode and Emanuel Hammond in Georgia, as well as Jeffrey Landrigan.

Disturbingly, it seems that Dream Pharma’s sodium thiopental may not have been properly effective as an anaesthetic, and that Brandon and Emanuel may therefore have been in agony during their executions. Dr Mark Heath, a renowned lethal injection expert, filed a sworn declaration stating that the fact that Brandon's eyes remained open throughout his execution was highly unusual and strongly suggested that he was not properly anaesthetized and therefore conscious throughout the process. He also wrote that:

“...if the thiopental was inadequately effective Mr Rhode’s death would certainly have been agonizing; there is no dispute that the asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium would be agonizing in the absence of adequate anesthesia.”

Reprieve is currently asking Business Secretary Vince Cable to put in place strict measures regulating the export of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride from the UK. We are also asking the governments of Austria and Germany, where sodium thiopental and its active ingredients are still manufactured, to follow Britain in imposing a full export ban on the drug. Hospira, which originally intended to begin manufacturing sodium thiopental destined for American penitentiaries in an Italian factory, announced in January that it would be ceasing all production of the drug.

The use of pentobarbital in executions is experimental and considered highly dangerous because the drug, a sedative, was not designed to be used as an anaesthetic. According to Dr. David Waisel, Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School: “The use of pentobarbital as an agent to induce anesthesia has no clinical history and is non-standard… the combination of significant unknowns… puts the inmate at risk of serious undue pain and suffering.”

About Reprieve:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve has represented, and continues to represent, a large number of prisoners who have been rendered and abused around the world, and is conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

Source: Reprieve, March 25, 2011

Contact Lundbeck,  send an email (contact@lundbeck.com) and/or sign an online petition demanding Lundbeck's widthdrawal of execution drug.

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Execution of 3 Filipinos on China death row set March 30

Chinese mobile execution unit
training for lethal injection

The 3 Filipino drugs mules on death row in China will be executed by lethal injection next Wednesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

Despite winning a rare reprieve following a high-level Philippine lobby, the death sentences on Ramon Credo, 42, Elizabeth Batain, 38, and Sally Villanueva, 32, will be carried out, the DFA said Wednesday.

"On the same day" Credo and Villanueva will be executed in Xiamen while the death penalty on Batain will be carried out in Shenzhen, said DFA spokesman J. Eduardo Malaya at a news conference.

The three, who were convicted of heroin smuggling in 2008, were due to have been put to death last February 20 and 21 but was put on hold after Vice President Jejomar Binay went to Beijing on February 18 to seek mercy.

Philippine authorities had gone to great lengths in a bid to save the Filipinos and made repeated appeals for their sentences to be commuted to life in jail.

But the Chinese embassy in Manila last week dashed hopes for clemency, saying, “The verdict is a final verdict.”

The DFA said Manila will respect the final ruling of China’s high tribunal.

"The government respects the Chinese law and the finality of the verdict of the Chinese People's Court," Malaya told reporters.

President Benigno Aquino last week acknowledged that from the start, the government was told that the stay of execution of the 3 Filipinos was temporary, and “we have to conform to their laws."

’All possible assistance'

The DFA said it provided “all possible legal and consular assistance” to the 3 Filipinos.

“The government ensured that their legal rights were respected and observed, and their welfare protected from the time of their arrests and throughout the judicial process, and even up to this very day,” it said.

The government had insisted that the 3 were from poor families and were duped into becoming drug mules by crime gangs.

The 3 are among 227 Filipinos jailed for drugs offenses in China. Of the total, 72 have received the death penalty with possible commutation, 38 meted life imprisonment, 78 sentenced to 15 years in prison and 35 currently on trial. Only 6 cases have reached the Supreme Court — 2 sentences overturned, 3 affirmed and 1 still being reviewed.

The DFA reiterated its warning for Filipinos “not to allow themselves to be victimized by international drug syndicates."

“We wish to stress that vigilance is the first major step in combating the modus operandi of international drug traffickers,” it said. “We urge all our citizens to be on alert at all times in order not to be victimized by drug syndicates."

Doomed loved ones

The DFA said the families of the Filipinos had been informed of the impending executions and will leave for China over the weekend to see their doomed loved ones for the last time.

Credo, 42, a father of 5 children, was arrested on December 28, 2008, at Gaoji International Airport in Xiamen after getting off a China Southern Airlines flight from Manila. A total of 4,113 grams of heroin was found in his luggage and he was formally charged with drug smuggling on January 21, 2009.

Credo is being held at Xiamen No. 1 Detention House, as is Villanueva, 32.

Villanueva, a mother of 2, was apprehended on December 24, 2008, also at Gaoji International Airport, upon arrival on China Southern Airlines flight from Manila. She was found with 4,410 grams of heroin in her suitcase. Villanueva was formally charged with drug smuggling on January 23, 2009.

Batain, 38, was arrested on May 25, 2008, at the Shenzhen airport after disembarking from an Asiana Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur. A total of 6,800 grams of heroin was found “sealed inside two reams of bond paper inside her luggage.” She was charged with drug trafficking on June 30, 2009. She is being held at Shenzhen No. 3 Detention House.

Smuggling more than 50 grams of heroin or other drugs is punishable by death in China. The Philippines has no death penalty.

Jayson Ordinario, a younger brother of one of the two women, said that his sister was hired as a cellphone dealer in Xiamen and was tricked into carrying a bag that had a secret compartment loaded with heroin allegedly by her job recruiter.

Last-ditch effort

Aquino had earlier written to Chinese President Hun Jintao appealing for clemency.

In another move seeking to spare Filipinos on death row in China, Aquino did not send a representative to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December honoring a jailed Chinese dissident. Manila also deported to Beijing last month 14 Taiwanese facing fraud charges in China despite protests from Taipei.

The Chinese ambassador said the criminal cases should not harm ties between Manila and Beijing.

"I don't want our wonderful relations to be kidnapped by these drug criminals," Liu said.

Source: Philippine Inquirer, March 23, 2011

Statement of the Department of Foreign Affairs, 23 March 2011

The Fujian People's Court and Guangdong High People's Court have informed the Philippine Consulates General in Xiamen and Guangzhou on the date of the carrying out of the death penalty on 3 Filipino nationals, namely Mr. Ramon Credo, Miss Elizabeth Batain and Miss Sally Villanueva.

The death penalty will be carried out on March 30 on Mr. Credo and Ms. Villanueva in Xiamen and on Ms. Batain in Shenzhen.

These are the Filipinos whose sentences were originally scheduled on February 20 and 21, but were stayed as a result of the humanitarian visit to Beijing of Vice President Jejomar Binay on February 18.

It may be recalled that during the visit of the Vice President, the Philippines conveyed that it "respects Chinese law and the (final) verdict of the Supreme People's Court" on these cases.

As the public is well aware, the Philippine Government provided the three Filipinos all possible legal and consular assistance. The Government ensured that their legal rights were respected and observed, and their welfare protected from the time of their arrests and throughout the judicial process, and even up to this very day.

Their families have been informed of the carrying out of the sentences, and arrangements are being made for them to depart for China during the weekend, in order to visit and see their loved ones.

The Philippine Government itself has a strong anti-illegal drug policy, and is closely cooperating with law enforcement agencies in China and in other countries on efforts against drug trafficking.

We appeal to all Filipinos, especially OFWs, not to allow themselves to be victimized by international drug syndicates and to be extremely cautious when dealing with strangers in airports and other areas of transit. We wish to stress that vigilance is the first major step in combating the modus operandi of international drug traffickers. We urge all our citizens to be on alert at all times in order not to be victimized by drug syndicates.

We hope that the members of the media will help the Government in its campaign to fight drug trafficking.

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, March 23, 2011
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British drugs linked with third botched execution

Jeffrey Landrigan is revealed to have died in agony in Arizona

A third American prisoner has suffered an excruciating death after an anaesthetic supplied by British drug company Dream Pharma apparently failed during the lethal injection procedure in Arizona.

In a sworn statement for Reprieve’s pending High Court action, lawyer and eyewitness Dale Baich states that Jeffrey Landrigan’s eyes remained open during the lethal injection process. This is a rare phenomenon and a key indicator that the anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, has failed.

Reprieve has now established that all three prisoners executed using Dream Pharma sodium thiopental have kept their eyes open. Emmanuel Hammond and Brandon Rhode in Georgia both appeared awake when they should have been unconscious, while Hammond repeatedly grimaced in pain.

There are increasingly urgent concerns over the efficacy of British sodium thiopental, supplied by a one-man wholesaler operating out of the back of an Acton driving academy. Following last year’s nationwide shortage in the US, Dream Pharma shipped the drug to prisons in Georgia, California, South Carolina, Arkansas and Arizona at dramatically inflated prices. The thiopental was sent via FedEx under uncontrolled conditions despite the fact that the drug degrades at temperatures above 26 degrees Celsius. Experts suggest that either the storage conditions in Acton or the shipping process could be responsible for the drug’s failure.

Reprieve has begun legal proceedings against British pharmaceutical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), for refusing to recall all Dream Pharma’s sodium thiopental in the face of clear risk that the drug is faulty. If successful, the case may halt executions in Arizona and many other states indefinitely.

Expert witnesses in the pending legal action have stated that prisoners normally lapse into deep unconsciousness within 10-12 seconds of sodium thiopental reaching their bloodstream. Dr Mark Heath, a consultant anaesthetist at Columbia hospital in New York, states that the prisoner’s eyes should remain closed and his body motionless. If not, this would indicate “an agonising death… asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium would be agonising in the absence of adequate anaesthesia”. Dr Heath’s affidavit states that the recent executions are “highly atypical… based on my studies of lethal injection, it is very unusual and surprising for a prisoner’s eyes to remain open after the efficacious administration of thiopental. One explanation is that thiopental lacked efficacy”. Rev Carroll Pickett, who has attended 95 executions as a prison chaplain in Texas, has said that on the very few occasions when he observed that a prisoner “did not lose consciousness almost immediately… it was due to the thiopental being close to or possibly past its expiration date”.

Three witnesses to the execution of Emanuel Hammond have expressed concern about the process. Professor Sheri Johnson, who watched particularly intently because she knew there were doubts over the British thiopental’s efficacy, said “he closed his eyes perhaps ten seconds after the drugs started. But then, some time later, he opened them again”. Professor Johnson added that this was quite unlike three thiopental executions she had seen before, when the prisoners closed their eyes very quickly and remained “totally still”, apparently in a coma. Josh Green, a reporter with the Gwinnett Daily Post, confirms that Hammond first closed, and then re-opened his eyes some time after receiving the thiopental, while Jill Rand, a Florida nurse who became Hammond’s pen friend, said she saw him move his lips.

Reprieve investigator Maya Foa said:

“Why does a regulator exist if not to prevent British drugs failing or, worse, causing pain to patients? It is difficult to see how much more evidence the MHRA needs in order to recall a faulty drug. If Dream Pharma’s sodium thiopental is not taken out of circulation, more prisoners are likely to die in agony and the MHRA will bear responsibility for their ordeal.”

For more information please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk / 020 7427 1099/ 07931592674.

Background:

In the summer of 2010, the only US manufacturer of execution drug sodium thiopental, Hospira, ceased production of the substance due to a shortage of raw materials, forcing Departments of Corrections in executing states to source their drugs from overseas. Reprieve discovered that a company in Britain was supplying these chemicals and set out to stop British complicity in executions. The approved execution protocol in the United States consists of a cocktail of three drugs: sodium thiopental (also known as thiopental sodium and pentothal) supposedly anaesthetizes the victim, before pancuronium bromide paralyses the muscles and potassium chloride stops the heart.

On 25th October 2010, Jeffrey Landrigan was executed in Arizona using sodium thiopental imported from Britain. The lawyers of Edmund Zagorski, a man who has spent 28 years of his life on death row in Tennessee, subsequently contacted Reprieve with the information that the Tennessee Department of Corrections was seeking to purchase their own supply of sodium thiopental from the same company. Reprieve and lawyers Leigh Day & Co contacted members of the government, asking them to put in place emergency measures to prevent the export of the chemical, and thus stay Edmund's execution. Business Secretary Vince Cable and Jeremy Browne MP on behalf of the FCO declined to take such a step.

Reprieve therefore filed for judicial review of the government’s failure to prevent British complicity in executions. Counsel for the government initially argued that it was not worth imposing an export ban as executing states would source their sodium thiopental from elsewhere, but on 29th November Vince Cable finally agreed to put in place a system of controls making it illegal to export sodium thiopental from the UK to the US.

Shortly afterwards, Reprieve discovered that the British company responsible was Dream Pharma, a tiny pharmaceutical wholesalers operating out of the back of a driving academy in Acton, and that it had already exported a substantial quantity of sodium thiopental – as well as the other two lethal injection chemicals – before the ban came into force. We asked Matt Alavi, the Managing Director of Dream Pharma, for his help in mitigating the damage done by his quest for profit; he had been selling sodium thiopental for between six and twelve times its recommended price, knowing that it was to be used in lethal injections. Mr Alavi refused, and the drugs he supplied have already been used to kill three people: Brandon Rhode and Emanuel Hammond in Georgia, as well as Jeffrey Landrigan.

Disturbingly, it seems that Dream Pharma’s sodium thiopental may not have been properly effective as an anaesthetic, and that Brandon and Emanuel may therefore have been in agony during their executions. Dr Mark Heath, a renowned lethal injection expert, filed a sworn declaration stating that the fact that Brandon's eyes remained open throughout his execution was highly unusual and strongly suggested that he was not properly anaesthetized and therefore conscious throughout the process. He also wrote that:

“...if the thiopental was inadequately effective Mr Rhode’s death would certainly have been agonizing; there is no dispute that the asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium would be agonizing in the absence of adequate anesthesia.”

Reprieve is currently asking Business Secretary Vince Cable to put in place strict measures regulating the export of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride from the UK. We are also asking the governments of Austria and Germany, where sodium thiopental and its active ingredients are still manufactured, to follow Britain in imposing a full export ban on the drug. Hospira, which originally intended to begin manufacturing sodium thiopental destined for American penitentiaries in an Italian factory, announced in January that it would be ceasing all production of the drug. This was largely a consequence of Reprieve’s action, in particular a press conference in Rome in early December.

About Reprieve:

Reprieve, a legal action charity, uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay. Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, working on the frontline, to provide legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world, securing each person’s right to a fair trial and saving lives. Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve and has spent 27 years working on behalf of people facing the death penalty in the USA.

Reprieve has represented, and continues to represent, a large number of prisoners who have been rendered and abused around the world, and is conducting ongoing investigations into the rendition and the secret detention of ‘ghost prisoners’ in the so-called ‘war on terror.’

Reprieve

PO Box 52742

London EC4P 4WS

Tel: 020 7353 4640

Fax: 020 7353 4641

Email: info@reprieve.org.uk

Website: www.reprieve.org.uk

Source: Reprieve, Feb. 24, 2011

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