WASHINGTON, Jan  25, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - A convicted murderer in the southern 
state of Alabama is expected on Thursday to become the first person executed in 
the United States using nitrogen gas, a method the UN has likened to "torture."

       Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, has been on death row for more than three decades 
after being convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of a pastor's wife.

       Smith is scheduled to be put to death at Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, 
during a 30-hour window which began at 1:00 am Eastern Time (0600 GMT) on 
Thursday.

       Smith is set to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping 
nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing him to die from lack of oxygen.

       The method has never been attempted before in the United States, according 
to the Death Penalty Information Center.

       Smith was subjected to a failed execution attempt in November 2022, when 
prison officials were unable to set intravenous lines to administer a lethal 
injection.

       In an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) in December, Smith said he 
was "absolutely terrified" about his upcoming execution and still suffering 
"trauma" from the previous failed bid.

       "Everybody is telling me that I'm going to suffer," he said.

       The last US execution using gas was carried out in 1999 when a convicted 
murderer was put to death using hydrogen cyanide gas.

       There were 24 executions in the United States in 2023, all of them carried 
out using lethal injection.

       Alabama is one of three US states that have approved the use of nitrogen 
hypoxia as a method of execution, along with Oklahoma and Mississippi.

       Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the UN rights office in Geneva, urged 
Alabama last week to abandon the plan to execute Smith using what she called a 
"novel and untested" method.

       Shamdasani said it could "amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or 
degrading treatment or punishment, under international human rights law."
       
       - No sedation -
           
       While nitrogen gas has never been used to execute humans in the United 
States, it is sometimes used to kill animals.

       But Shamdasani pointed out that the American Veterinary Medical Association 
recommends giving even large animals a sedative when being euthanized in this 
manner.

       Alabama's protocol for execution by nitrogen asphyxiation makes no 
provision for sedation prior to execution.

       The state of Alabama has defended the method of execution, claiming that it 
is "perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised."

       Beyond the execution method, Shamdasani reiterated the UN's opposition to 
the death penalty in principle.

       "The death penalty is inconsistent with the fundamental right to life," she 
said.

       Smith and an accomplice, John Parker, were convicted of the 1988 murder of 
Elizabeth Sennett for which they were each paid $1,000.

       Sennett's husband, Charles Sennett, who had arranged his wife's murder, 
killed himself a week after her death. Parker was executed by lethal injection 
in 2010.

       Smith appealed to the US Supreme Court for a stay of execution but the 
nation's highest court denied the request on Wednesday without comment.

       Further appeals for a stay are pending but the conservative-dominated court 
has rarely granted such requests in recent years.

       According to a recent Gallup Poll, 53 percent of Americans support the 
death penalty for someone convicted of murder, the lowest level since 1972.

       Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 US states, while the governors 
of six others -- Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee 
-- have put a hold on its use.