US prisons target India for execution drugs

US prisons are stepping up efforts to buy prescription medicines from India for use in executions, even as European countries are seeking to clamp down on the export of drugs used for lethal injections.

Emails seen by the Financial Times show intensifying discussions in recent months between a Mumbai-based intermediary and prison officials from several US states seeking drugs, including sodium thiopental, for injection as “cocktails” into prisoners sentenced to death.

The discussions follow an anti-death penalty campaign by human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Reprieve, which has helped to trigger bans across Europe. An EU-wide regulation was issued on Tuesday.

The EU has expanded the list of products subject to export control bans to include drugs used in capital punishment and torture. Suppliers, including Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, had already tightened supplies of drugs used for the death penalty.

Catherine Ashton, high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission, said the new list would be followed by a fuller review of regulations next year.

In a statement, she said: “The European Union opposes the death penalty under all circumstances. The decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide. This is a first step in response to the calls of civil society organisations and the European Parliament to strengthen the EU legislation.”

Earlier unilateral initiatives by governments and companies to prevent use of drugs in injections raised concerns that they would be difficult to enforce legally.

However, Maya Foa, a researcher for Reprieve, said the introduction of an EU-wide ban would add pressure on US prisons, which have attempted to avoid being seen as breaking laws to obtain supplies abroad following the closure of production within the US.

She warned that the EU legislation would still need to be tightened further beyond a specific list of banned products to include any future types of pharmaceuticals that could be used in the death penalty.

A number of Indian drug companies had already supplied drugs inadvertently to US prisons in recent months, she said, but had since clamped down after discovering they had been diverted from what they believed were to be legitimate medical uses of their products.

Correspondence released following freedom of information requests made by Reprieve showed that Chris Harris, based in Mumbai, offered drug supplies to the Nebraska department of correctional services and the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, as well as South Dakota. Attempts by the Financial Times to contact Mr Harris by email were not successful.

Ms Foa said other states, including Texas, were running short of supplies and were struggling to find foreign suppliers they could use because of seizures of imported stocks by the Drug Enforcement Agency – not because of their use in the death penalty but because they simply failed to meet the necessary paperwork.