British Group Sues to Stop Export of Execution Drug to US

Activists sued the British government Tuesday to stop the export of a drug to the United States they say will be used in an execution.

Reprieve, a London-based group that opposes the death penalty, says the drug, sodium thiopental, will be used in the southern U.S. state of Tennessee to execute a prisoner convicted of murdering two men in 1983.

Reprieve had asked Britain’s business secretary, Vince Cable, to issue an emergency ban on the export of sodium thiopental. Cable rejected the request, stating that the drug can be used for legitimate medical purposes and that a ban on its export would not halt executions in the United States.

Sodium thiopental, a sedative, is the first drug administered as part of a three-drug cocktail used in executions by lethal injection.

There is a shortage of the drug in the United States, which has forced some states to postpone executions.

Some information in this story was provided by AP and Reuters.