Reprieve, a United Kingdom-based organization opposing capital punishment, has filed suit in British court to stop the government from exporting death penalty drugs to the United States, which is experiencing a shortage. The legal challenge was filed on behalf of Edmund Zagorski, an American prisoner facing imminent execution in Tennessee, where officials are seeking to purchase sodium thiopental from the UK.

 

Another U.S. citizen, Jeffery Landrigan, was executed on October 25 in Arizona using drugs supplied by a British company. The lawsuit was filed after Reprieve failed to convince Vince Cable, the British business secretary, to halt the exportation of death penalty drugs to the U.S. Cable said he didn’t see the point of interfering because American officials would simply turn to another country for assistance.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

British Government Sued for Allowing the Continued Export of Lethal Injection Drugs from Britain for American Executions (Reprieve)

Death Penalty Campaigners Try To Halt Sales of UK-Made Execution Drug (by Owen Bowcott, Guardian)

Executions Delayed Because of Drug Shortage (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)