Vatican-affiliated Catholic charity makes last-minute appeal to stop ‘barbarous’ Alabama execution

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

ROME (AP) — A leading Catholic charity is making a last-minute appeal to the U.S. state of Alabama to halt a planned execution using nitrogen gas. The Sant’Egidio Community says the method is “barbarous” and would bring “indelible shame” to the state. Sant’Egidio has lobbied for decades to abolish the death penalty. Thursday’s scheduled execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith would be the first U.S. execution using nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama has said Smith will wear a gas mask and that breathable air will be replaced with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen. But some doctors and critics say the effects and what exactly Smith will feel are unknown.