United States President Donald Trump’s administration plans to add firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation as alternative methods of executing people convicted of the gravest federal crimes, it announced on Saturday, noting difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections.
The recommendation came in a Justice Department report fulfilling Trump’s promise to resume capital punishment at the federal level in his second term, although it will likely be several years before another federal execution can be scheduled.
Returning to the White House last year, Trump rescinded a moratorium on federal executions by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Responding to the plan, Pope Leo XIV called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. — Reuters/dpa
