Reprieve welcomes the announcement by the Department for Business that it is introducing controls on the export to the US of drugs used in lethal injections.
Business Minister Mark Prisk has written to Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, to confirm that the Government will put in place measures to stop the export to the US of three drugs for use in executions.
The move follows the Government’s previous action in placing an emergency export control on sodium thiopental – an anaesthetic which had been purchased by US prisons from the UK for use in lethal injections – following legal action by Reprieve.
The UK Government now intends to control exports to the US of:
- pancuronium bromide – a muscle relaxant and the second of a three-drug execution ‘cocktail’ used by many states
- potassium chloride – the third part of the ‘cocktail’, used to stop the heart
- sodium pentobarbital – a barbiturate more commonly used to put down animals but seeing increasing use in US executions as supplies of sodium thiopental become scarce
Reprieve's Director Clive Stafford Smith said: '"Britain has now taken the lead in ending complicity in the US death penalty, which is very welcome. Since the US executing states are now turning to a Danish company, Lundbeck, to kill people, we must hope that the UK can persuade our EU partners to take a similar line."
Source: Reprieve, April 14, 2011
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