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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ed Pilkington in New York

Death row inmate’s dreadful dilemma: lethal drugs or cyanide used by Nazis

Frank Atwood, who was sentenced to death for killing an eight-year-old girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, in 1984. He has consistently claimed his innocence.
Frank Atwood, who was sentenced to death for killing an eight-year-old girl, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson, in 1984. He has consistently claimed his innocence. Photograph: AP

A death row inmate in Arizona has two weeks to decide whether to be executed with cyanide gas, the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps.

On Tuesday the supreme court of Arizona issued an execution warrant for Frank Atwood that, barring last-minute appeals, will see him put to death on 8 June. The prisoner now has until 19 May to choose his preferred method of death – either lethal injection or hydrogen cyanide, a poisonous gas made notorious by the Nazis as a mass killing technique during the Holocaust.

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