Drugs used in US executions are supplied by a UK company, investigation shows

A UK company owned by a businessman who also runs a small driving school in west London has supplied drugs to the United States to be used in some forms of execution by lethal injection, found an investigation carried out by Reprieve UK, a charity that uses the law to enforce prisoners’ rights, and the BBC.

The investigation, reported by the BBC on 6 January, found an invoice from the company, Dream Pharma, for three drugs used in some forms of lethal injection for execution in the US, with the same date as an email between US prison officials confirming that they had obtained the three drugs from a company in London.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve UK, has called on the UK government to impose an immediate export ban on two of the drugs (pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride), after the government’s recent introduction of a scheme requiring a licence for the export of the …