Thailand on Friday carried out its first executions by lethal injection after abolishing the firing squad, putting to death three drug traffickers and a murderer at the notorious Bang Kwang jail, officials said.
The Corrections Department said Bunluea Nakprasit, Panthapong Sinthusung and Wibul Panasutha were arrested in May 1999 on charges of producing 115 800 methamphetamine tablets.
The fourth condemned man was hired gun man Panom Thongchanglek from the southern province of Chumporn, who was arrested in June 1999.
”The Supreme Court upheld their death sentences,” Corrections Department director general Nathee Chitsawang told reporters.
”We have for the first time switched to lethal injection on humanitarian grounds because this method is less painful,” he said at the jail, better known as the ”Bangkok Hilton”, on the outskirts of Bangkok.
Nathee said three drugs are used in the executions — the first sedates the convict, the second relaxes the muscles and the third stops the heart.
Since 1935, 319 prisoners including three women have been executed by firing squad in Thailand, the last on December 11 in the case of a prisoner found guilty of murder, the department said.
The Thai government reintroduced the death penalty in 1996 after a nine-year hiatus and the rate of executions has been stepped up in recent years due to a campaign against trafficking in opium and methamphetamines.
London-based rights group Amnesty International condemned Friday’s executions and said the new method does not change the fact the death penalty is wrong and inhumane.
”Amnesty International is deeply concerned by the resumption of executions and calls on authorities to impose an immediate moratorium,” it said, adding that it believes up to 64 prisoners on death row face imminent execution.
”The death penalty has no unique deterrent effect upon crime and we call on Thai authorities to find other avenues to address drug problems and other serious offences.”
Thailand has said that the change to lethal injection is due to several reasons including a concern for human rights and to avoid ”accidents” when prisoners do not die immediately.
But Amnesty said lethal injection does not necessarily deliver the swift and painless death claimed by its proponents.
”Medical experts in the United States have recently expressed concern that the cocktail used in these injections may leave a person conscious but paralysed and suffocating and in intense pain before death,” it said. — Sapa-AFP