Arizona's Alleged Plan To Use Nazi-Era Gas For Death Row Executions 'Horrific' - Activist

Arizona's reported plans to execute those sentenced to death with hydrogen cyanide, a lethal gas used by the Nazis at the infamous Auschwitz death camp in modern Poland, are horrific and shameful, Kevin Heade, the president of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona, told Sputnik, adding that it is totally unacceptable for any country, especially one that proclaims to defend human rights, to execute anyone in such a way

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd June, 2021) Arizona's reported plans to execute those sentenced to death with hydrogen cyanide, a lethal gas used by the Nazis at the infamous Auschwitz death camp in modern Poland, are horrific and shameful, Kevin Heade, the president of Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona, told Sputnik, adding that it is totally unacceptable for any country, especially one that proclaims to defend human rights, to execute anyone in such a way.

In late May, reports emerged claiming that Arizona had spent over $2,000 to procure the ingredients to make hydrogen cyanide gas, which was used by Nazis at the Auschwitz camp under the name Zyklon B. In particular, the state bought a solid brick of potassium cyanide, sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid. The gas chamber which was built in the late 1940s has been reportedly dusted off.

"Arizona's preparation to use Zyklon B in its gas chamber is horrific," Heade told Sputnik,

He slammed the move as "shameful, grotesque, and despicable."

"It is totally unacceptable for any country in the world to execute anyone using cyanide gas, let alone one which professes to be a standard-bearer of human rights," he said.

According to Heade, the problem goes beyond the use of cyanide gas, as there is simply no humane method of execution.

"Arizona, the 23 other American states who actively seek the death penalty, and the United States government should join the rest of the democratic world in ending its cruel and unjustifiable system of capital punishment.

There simply is no place for state-sponsored murder anywhere in the world in the 21st Century," he said.

This is not the first time Arizona penitentiary finds itself in a hot water. In April this year, the state was named among three other states to be secretly spending huge sums of taxpayers' money to buy pharmaceutical drugs for lethal injections from illicit dealers since pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors are against the use of their drugs in executions. Arizona reportedly tops the list of these illegal spending with the state's department of corrections ordering 1,000 vials with pentobarbital - a substance used in lethal injections - totaling $1.5 million in October 2020. Speaking to Sputnik back then, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry said that it does not discuss its procurement process for execution drugs or services "rendered to carry out these legally imposed sentences."

Executions were put on hold in Arizona back in 2014 after the death of Joseph Wood, who was injected 15 times over almost 2 hours of gasping and groaning while being strapped to the gurney. The execution that should have taken about 10 minutes was described as "botched." The state is now seeking to restart executions.