Arkansas reportedly obtained execution drugs via unrecorded 'donation'

(Image credit: Arkansas Department of Correction/FDA via AP)

published 21 April 2017

The Associated Press reported Friday that drugmaker Fresenius Kabi USA forbade Arkansas from purchasing its products for use in capital punishment. Fresenius has identified itself as the possible source of Arkansas' supply of potassium chloride, one of three drugs the state is using in its eight executions scheduled this month.

Months after Fresenius asked the state not to use its drugs for lethal injections, AP reports a state corrections official accepted a "donation" of the drug "by driving to an undisclosed location to meet an unnamed seller" who made no record of the sale.

Arkansas had planned four double executions in 11 days before its supply of another drug expired April 30. The first inmate was executed Thursday, after the Supreme Court reversed a judge's order blocking the state's use of another lethal injection drug, vecuronium bromide. The state was previously prohibited from using the drug after the distributor claimed the state had misled it by indicating the drug would be used for "medically approved purposes," AP reports.