The first death row prisoner who was slated to be executed by lethal injection was finally given the injection on August 6 in Hanoi after a long wait due to the lack of the required drugs.
Nguyen Anh Tuan (middle) during a court appeal in January 2010
According to the decree, the lethal injection will include chemicals to render the inmate unconscious, paralysed and finally cause their heart to stop. 117 out of 586 death sentences can now be carried out.
The prisoner was Nguyen Anh Tuan, convicted of murder and robbery. Tuan and his accomplice attempted to rob a woman in Feburary 2009. When the victim asked to go to toilet, they suddenly killed her. Tuan and his friend were caught in June 2009.
An official from the Consular Department and the Criminal Verdict Enforcement Police Department said, after piloting the programme in Hanoi, the use of lethal injection will be implemented nation-wide.
In 2011, the new law sanctioning the use of lethal injections instead of firing squads, came into effect. The Ministry of Security has built five facilities but due to the lack of the lethal drugs, they've had to postpone many executions.
The drugs that form the lethal injection package include sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Previously these chemicals had to be imported from the EU. However the EU is opposed to the death penalty and refused to sell the chemicals for the purposes of lethal injection.
More than 500 death sentences have been put on hold in recent years, leading to many debates among NA deputies concerning the use of the Death Penalty in Vietnam.
