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Richard Glossip: Oklahoma halts execution 'to check drugs' | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
A man convicted of ordering his boss's murder has had his execution postponed at the very last minute, due to uncertainty over the lethal drugs. | |
Richard Glossip looked certain to die by injection in Oklahoma on Wednesday afternoon after the US Supreme Court rejected his appeal. | |
But Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has asked for more time to check if the drugs are compliant with state rules. | |
Pope Francis had urged her to halt the execution. | |
His archbishop had written to her and urged her to act to commute the sentence, but she said she did not have the authority to do so. | |
An hour after Glossip was due to be put to death, Ms Fallin announced that she was rescheduling the execution for 6 November. | |
She said prison officials had received potassium acetate for use in the execution, as one of the three drugs used, but state guidelines only list potassium chloride. | |
Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said he requested the stay of execution "out of due diligence". | |
Glossip's boss Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Oklahoma City motel, was beaten to death in 1997. | |
His colleague Adam Sneed was convicted of the killing but said Glossip had ordered him to carry it out. | |
Glossip and his family have maintained his innocence for nearly 20 years, saying that Sneed acted alone. | |
He was first convicted in 1998 but that was overturned in 2001, only for Glossip to be convicted again three years later. | |
In the most recent appeals, his lawyers said they had an affidavit from another inmate who said Sneed admitted to setting Glossip up. | |
British billionaire Richard Branson took out a full-page ad in The Oklahoman newspaper on Wednesday that argued Glossip is innocent. | |
Executions have been delayed recently in the US amid problems buying drugs as many firms have refused to sell them. | |
Oklahoma's drugs procedures have been under scrutiny since a flawed execution in April 2014. | |
Clayton Lockett struggled for 43 minutes before eventually dying, after an intravenous line was improperly placed. | |
The Pope had also intervened in the case of a woman in Georgia, but Kelly Gissendaner was put to death on Tuesday. | |
During the pontiff's visit last week to the US, he urged Congress to abolish the death penalty. |