World

US executes white supremacist killer

07:36 am on 21 November 2013

An American white supremacist killer who targeted black and Jewish people has been executed in the state of Missouri.

Joseph Franklin was executed for shooting dead a man outside a synagogue in the city of St Louis in 1977.

The 63-year-old was convicted of a string of racially-motivated murders and claimed to have committed 20 in total, the BBC reports.

In 1978, Franklin shot Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, leaving him partially paralysed, after seeing a picture of a mixed-race couple in one of his magazines.

But Mr Flynt - who opposes the death penalty - had sued to prevent Franklin's execution.

Lawyers for Franklin had argued he shouldn't be killed using a single drug, pentobarbital, because not enough was known about the necessary dosage.