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Nitrogen gas execution was “textbook” and will be used again, Alabama attorney general says
The execution of convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen hypoxia was “textbook,” Alabama’s attorney general Steve Marshall said in a news conference on Friday.
The execution was carried out on Thursday night and marked the first time nitrogen hypoxia, a process that aims to cause asphyxiation by forcing an individual to inhale pure nitrogen or lethally high concentrations of it through a gas mask, was used to execute someone.
“What occurred last night was textbook,” Marshall said. “As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution is no longer an untested method. It is a proven one.”
Smith had requested the method of death after surviving a botched lethal injection in 2022, but his attorneys argued that he was being used as a “test subject,” and human rights activists criticized the untried new method.
Multiple legal challenges were levied against the use of nitrogen hypoxia before the execution. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama was within its constitutional rights to carry out the execution, and on Thursday the court allowed the execution to proceed as planned.
Marshall said Friday morning that he could hardly call the execution “justice” for the family of Elizabeth Sennett, whom Smith was convicted of killing in 1989, because of how long it took for the sentence to be carried out. Smith was one of two men who received $1,000 from Sennett’s husband to kill her. Sennett’s husband committed suicide a week after the killing. His accomplice Parker was executed in June 2010 for his part in the killings, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.
Marshall apologized to the couple’s sons on Friday.
“I want to tell the family, especially the victim’s sons, Mike and Chuck, how genuinely sorry I am for the horrific manner in which their mother lost her life, but I also want to apologize to them for how long it took for this sentence to be carried out,” Marshall said.
Marshall said that 43 other inmates sentenced to death in Alabama have requested execution by nitrogen hypoxia. He said that he also believes other states will begin using the method.
“Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” Marshall said. “We stand ready to assist you in implementing this method in your states.”
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Russian playwright, theater director sentenced to prison on terrorism charges
A Russian court on Monday convicted a theater director and a playwright of terrorism charges and sentenced them to six years each in prison, the latest in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent across the country that has reached new heights since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
Zhenya Berkovich, a prominent independent theater director, and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk have already been in jail for over a year awaiting trial.
Authorities claimed their play “Finist, the Brave Falcon” justifies terrorism, which is a criminal offense in Russia punishable by up to seven years in prison. Berkovich and Petriychuk have both repeatedly rejected the accusations against them.
In one hearing, Berkovich told the court that she staged the play in order to prevent terrorism, and Petriychuk echoed her sentiment, saying that she wrote it in order to prevent events like those depicted in the play.
The women’s lawyers pointed out at court hearings before the trial that the play was supported by the Russian Culture Ministry and won the Golden Mask award, Russia’s most prestigious national theater award. In 2019, the play was read to inmates of a women’s prison in Siberia, and Russia’s state penitentiary service praised it on its website, Petriychuk’s lawyer said.
The case against Berkovich and Petriychuk elicited outrage in Russia. An open letter in support of the two artists, started by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was signed by more than 16,000 people since their arrest.
The play, the letter argued, “carries an absolutely clear anti-terrorist sentiment.”
Dozens of Russian actors, directors and journalists also signed affidavits urging the court to release the two from custody pending investigation and trial.
Immediately after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin unleashed a sweeping campaign of repression, unparalleled since the Soviet era. It has effectively criminalized any criticism of the war, with the authorities targeting not only prominent opposition figures who eventually received draconian prison terms, but anyone who spoke out against it, publicly or otherwise.
Pressure mounted on critical artists in Russia, too. Actors and directors were fired from state-run theaters, and musicians were blacklisted from performing in the country. Some were slapped with the label “foreign agent,” which carries additional government scrutiny and strong negative connotations. Many have left Russia.
Berkovich, who is raising two adopted daughters, refused to leave Russia and continued working with her independent theater production in Moscow, called Soso’s Daughters. Shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, she staged an anti-war picket and was jailed for 11 days.
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