The Guardian reports, "Executed man's mother urges ban on exports profiting from death penalty." It's written by Owen Bowcott.
The mother of a US death row inmate who was executed with British-supplied drugs is to call for a ban on exports that support capital punishment overseas when she appears before MPs.
Patches Rhode believes her son, Brandon, died in agony from a lethal injection in a Georgia prison because the UK-sourced anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, appeared not to have been effective.
Her grief has been sharpened by the revelation that the drug which enabled the execution to go ahead was sold by a small-scale pharmaceutical wholesaler, Dream Pharma, that operates out of a driving school office in the west London suburb of Acton.
And:
In a statement given to Reprieve, Dr Mark Heath, a US expert on lethal injection drugs, agreed that the fact that Brandon's eyes remained open suggested he was not properly anaesthetised.
"If the thiopental was inadequately effective Mr Rhode's death would certainly have been agonising," Heath wrote. "There is no dispute that the asphyxiation caused by pancuronium [bromide] and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium [chloride] would be agonising in the absence of adequate anaesthesia."
According to one pharmaceutical expert, allowing sodium thiopental to drop below freezing in storage or transit might result in it becoming "denatured and not fit for purpose".
Dream Pharma is run by Mehdi Alavi and operates out of the offices of Elgone Driving Academy in west London. At the time of the sale last summer, there was no ban on selling sodium thiopental to the US.
Earlier coverage includes:
- More Questions About the British Sodium Thiopental
- Questions Surround British Drug Used in Georgia Execution
Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
Comments