Nine executions in Ohio, including that of a child killer, have been delayed due to a court fight over the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection process.

US President Barack Obama has asked for a review of the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate which he said he found “deeply troubling”.

Lethal injection was adopted by the US because it was more ‘humane’ but an EU ban on certain drugs has led to painful and prolonged deaths, writes Leonid Bershidsky.

A lawyer for a Ohio killer whose slow, gasping execution with a new drug combination renewed questions about the death penalty was suspended temporarily amid an investigation into whether he coached the condemned man to fake symptoms of suffocation, it has emerged.