17 November 2010 :

Radical parliamentarian and Hands Off Cain treasurer Elisabetta Zamparutti today presented an urgent interrogation to the Council President and the Health Minister. The topic was the notice spread by the British humanitarian organsiation “Reprieve” and published by the Repubblica website that Hospira Spa, a pharmaceutical company based in Liscate, a province of Milan, was commissioned to produce and export Pentothal to the United States. Pentothal is a potent barbituate used in all lethal injection protocols and its scarcity has provoked the postponing of executions in various American states.
In her interrogation, which was signed by all Radical parliamentarians, Zamparutti asked Berlusconi and Fazio to “intervene, in coherence with Italy's commitment to and mobilisation at the international level for the abolition of the death penalty, to respect all our laws and the European norms that prohibit cooperation in any way with the practice of capital punishment, torture or any other cruel and inhumane acts.”
“It would be totally paradoxical for our country, that has abolished the death penalty and recently committed to the approval of a new Resolution for the universal Moratorium on capital punishment at the United Nations, to now help the United States replenish the stocks of Pentothal for the lethal injection. In the last few months, the scarcity of Pentothal has given a respite to death row prisoners,” Zamparutti said.