Florida execution using pentobarbital goes ahead despite protests

A man who spent 33 years on death row in Florida for killing a policeman has been executed despite a petition filed with the Florida courts by a British neurologist and pleas to the governor from the Danish drug firm whose pentobarbital was used.

David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at City Hospital, Birmingham, filed the petition at the Florida Supreme Court to try to stop Manuel Valle’s execution going ahead.

The Danish company Lundbeck wrote to Florida …