Death lasted 6 minutes

Second execution with nitrogen in the USA

Demonstrators protested against the new method of execution, but Alan Eugene Miller was nevertheless killed with nitrogen.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/AP, Alabama Department of Corrections)

In the USA, another prisoner was executed using nitrogen gas - the second time this highly controversial method has been used. An eyewitness reported that Alan Miller gasped for air for around six minutes before he died.

Execution by nitrogen is described as torture by critics such as the United Nations: At the first execution using this gas in the USA in January of this year, it took almost half an hour before inmate Kenneth Smith was pronounced dead. 

Reporter: "Didn't go as promised"
In the current case in the US state of Alabama, the convicted offender also appears to have struggled with death for some time. A reporter who was present at the execution explained on X: "Here too, it didn't go as the state officials had promised. Miller visibly resisted for about two minutes, shaking and pulling at his shackles. He spent the next five to six minutes gasping for air."

Here, journalist Lauren Gill describes her observations during the execution:

The nitrogen was supplied to the 59-year-old with him through a face mask. This causes a lack of oxygen. The USA had been looking for new execution methods, as many pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide the drugs used in lethal injection executions. 

Alan Miller was sentenced to death for the killing of three work colleagues in 1999. He was due to be executed in September 2022: The attempt was eventually aborted at the last minute due to problems with the administration of the lethal injection. 

Another execution by lethal injection in Oklahoma
Another death sentence was carried out in the US state of Oklahoma on Thursday. The 52-year-old Emmanuel Littlejohn was killed by lethal injection. He is said to have killed a 31-year-old man during a robbery at a small supermarket in 1992.

Littlejohn always denied responsibility for the death of the 31-year-old and blamed his accomplice for the crime, with whom he had committed the robbery. A plea for clemency by the 52-year-old was rejected by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.