US murderer executed using animal drug

WASHINGTON - A convicted murderer was executed in the US state of Oklahoma with a drug cocktail that included a sedative used to put down animals, media reports said.

Authorities were allowed by a court to substitute in the three-drug cocktail used for executions in Oklahoma the sedative pentobarbital for sodium thiopental due to a nationwide shortage of the latter, the Tulsa World reported on its website.

John David Duty was sentenced to death for murdering a 22-year-old cellmate in 2001. He had been given three life terms in 1978 for rape, robbery and shooting with intent to kill.

Duty’s execution Thursday evening was the last scheduled for 2010.

His lawyers had fought the drug substitution, arguing in a November court hearing that the use of pentobarbital could be inhumane, as it had never been used before in executions.

The sedative is used to make the inmate unconscious, before administering the other lethal drugs.