What’s nitrogen hypoxia? Alabama prepares for Kenneth Smith’s US execution
Al Jazeera
Smith will be the first inmate in history executed with nitrogen gas.
Alabama, a US state with 165 people on death row, is on Thursday night expected to attempt the first-ever execution by an untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia.
Only two years after a botched execution attempt on him, Kenneth Eugene Smith will once again be made to face death, this time through an experimental technique that pumps pure nitrogen gas into a person’s lungs instead of the regular air that has the oxygen humans need to breathe.
Smith’s execution in the United States is moving forward despite criticism from rights groups, some doctors and the jury for the case itself voting against the death penalty.
What’s the case about, how does the nitrogen hypoxia method work, and what are lawyers and rights groups saying about it?
Smith, 58, is one of two men convicted for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett, 45, on March 18, 1988.
