OLD Smokey, the electric chair, is to be re-energised.

Ivan Teleguz is the next victim to be murdered by the state of Virginia.

According to the Guardian, Teleguz may actually be innocent.

Witnesses have withdrawn their testimony.

One witness claimed he implicated Teleguz because the police promised him help with immigration.

Failing to secure FDA approved drugs for lethal injection, the handful of states clinging to prediluvian morality have reinstated barbaric execution practices; firing squad, the electric chair, or the gas chamber.

Botched executions have demonstrated that lethal injection is no more humane than any other killing.

Lethal injection is a public psychological placebo veiled by medical paraphernalia associated with healing.

With other means of execution like the firing squad the witnesses see and the public is aware of red-hot missiles tearing through flesh and bone; the electric chair singeing the skin and hair while literally cooking the brain and internal organs; the gas chamber slowly asphyxiating the victim on a gurney. Killing is an act of violence.

When a state acts on behalf of its people they must take full responsibility for that practice.

Pablo Casals asks, "The love of one's country is a splendid thing, but why should love end at the border?"

My answer is, "I accept that I am my brother's" keeper and that my family transcends all borders to encompass the world.

DIETER MOECKEL

Bundaberg