U.N.Official condemns Alabama gas execution; "May amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment"

(Geneva) -- A top U.N. official is condemning the execution of an American prisoner by nitrogen gas.  

Alabama death row inmate Kenneth Smith was executed Thursday for a 1988 murder-for-hire, and was the first in the nation to die by nitrogen gas. Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement today calling death by nitrogen hypoxia "an untested method of suffocation" that "may amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."  

One witness to the execution reported the 58-year-old Smith struggled to breathe for more than 20 minutes.