The US state of Alabama has executed 58-year-old Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted of murder, by using nitrogen gas. The BBC has mentioned that nitrogen gas was used for the first time in the United States during executions. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Smith is the first person in the world to be executed using pure nitrogen gas.

Smith was sentenced to death after losing appeals to the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Appeals, arguing that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment. Attempts to execute him by lethal injection in 2022 failed.

Smith was convicted in 1989 for the murder of Elizabeth Sennett, the wife of a preacher.

Alabama and two other US states have approved the use of nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative method after lethal injections have become increasingly difficult to find. Under that policy, death penalty was given for the first time using nitrogen. In different states of America, the death penalty is given by lethal injection.

Breathing only pure nitrogen gas deprives the brain of oxygen, a process known as nitrogen hypoxia. Breathing nitrogen without oxygen causes body cells to break down and die.According to prison officials, pure nitrogen gas was circulated over Smith’s face with a mask.

Before being executed, Smith said: ‘Tonight Alabama takes humanity a step back, thank you for supporting me. Love everyone’. According to eyewitnesses to the incident, Smith was agitated for two to four minutes and breathing heavily for about five minutes before being pronounced dead.

The Attorney General of Alabama, Steve Marshall, refuted the comments in the media saying that nitrogen use is scary and said that it has been proven to be an effective and humane method of execution.