Indian firm to halt sale of execution drug to US

MUMBAI, Apr 7 (AFP): An Indian pharmaceutical company has vowed to stop supplying US prison authorities with a key drug used in the execution of death row prisoners, its managing director said Thursday. Navneet Verma, from Kayem Pharmaceutical Ltd in Mumbai, said the firm had sold 500, one-gram vials of sodium thiopental to the state authorities in Nebraska in December last year and South Dakota in March. But he said the firm was not aware of how the drug was going to be used and an employee who dealt with the transaction had since been sacked for "breach of trust" for allegedly withholding the information. "I was not aware at the outset that it was going to be used for lethal injection. We are in the business of supplying it where it is actually required for anaesthesia," he told AFP. "I'm not in the business of killing." In future, any organisation placing an order for the drug will have to declare their purpose, Verma added.