HANOI, Vietnam – A report says Vietnam has executed the first prisoner by lethal injection after a long delay caused by the country's struggle to obtain the needed chemicals.
The Communist country had not executed anyone since 2011, when it decided to switch from firing squads to legal injection on humanitarian grounds. However, the European Union bans factories from exporting drugs used in execution and Vietnam does not produce the chemicals itself.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, a 27-year-old man, who was condemned to death in 2010 for murdering a woman, became the first prisoner executed by lethal injection at a prison in Hanoi on Tuesday, the Thanh Nien newspaper reported.
There are currently 586 people on the death row in Vietnam, it said.
