Reprieve for prisoner

Ely, Nevada: A condemned killer who had given up on any further appeals as he awaited execution in Nevada yesterday received an 11thhour reprieve, thanks to a pharmaceutical company suing to block the use of one of its drugs in the lethal injection process.

Alvogen Inc, which said the Nevada Corrections Department had obtained the sedative midazolam unlawfully, won a court order barring the product from being administered to Scott Dozier as part of the state’s newly devised and untested threedrug execution protocol.

Dozier (47) had been scheduled to be put to death at 3pm New Zealand time yesterday at a state prison in Ely, Nevada, in what would be the state’s first execution in 12 years.

The drugmaker filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, asserting that use of its product for an execution would cause ‘‘irreparable injury to Alvogen, its reputation, and its goodwill’’. — Reuters