South Carolina executes first death row inmate in 13 years

South Carolina has executed its first death row inmate in 13 years for the murder of a convenience store clerk in 1997.

Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, died by lethal injection on Friday evening after the US Supreme Court refused to stop the execution and the state’s governor Henry McMaster denied clemency.

Allah, who was previously known as Freddie Owens, was executed in front of three media witnesses at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

He was convicted of armed robbery and the murder of cashier Irene Graves at the convenience store in 1997. He was 19 at the time of the slaying in which Graves, 41, was shot in the head.

Allah has always insisted he was innocent of the murder. He confessed to killing a cellmate in 1999 while awaiting sentencing following his conviction, reported WHNS.

Weeks before the execution, co-defendant Steven Golden told courts that he testified against Allah under a secret deal he had with prosecutors.

Just two days before the execution Golden walked back his testimony.

Golden, who served 28 years in prison for his role in the slaying, wrote in a sworn statement that he lied to a South Carolina jury in the 1999 trial when he said Owens had pulled the trigger.

“Freddie Owens is not the person who shot Irene Graves at the Speedway on November 1, 1997,” Golden wrote in the sworn statement filed to the South Carolina Supreme Court this week, reported The Greenville News. “Freddie was not present when I robbed the Speedway that day.”

South Carolina stopped executing inmates when it ran out of the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections in 2011. In the years after that, the state introduced the use of the electric chair and death by firing squad before passing a “shield law” to hide all information about obtaining the drugs and procedures used in the lethal injection.

The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.