Mississippi death row inmate Dale Bishop was executed at midnight last night, UK time (1800hrs, local time) despite appeals for clemency from across the US and the world, and a campaign by London based charity Reprieve to commute the death penalty to life imprisonment.

Bishop becomes only the 8th person of the more than 1,000 judicially killed in the US since 1976 who did not directly kill the victim whose death he was convicted for.  Bishop's co-accused Jessie Johnson is serving life for the murder of Marcus Gentry, who was bludgeoned to death with a hammer.  The prosecution accepted that Bishop did not inflict the injuries that killed Gentry.

Under Mississippi law, an accessory before the fact can be convicted of the same crime someone else commits.

Reprieve had asked volunteers to petition state governor Haley Barbour for clemency. 

"Justice has been rendered for this horrible crime," Barbour is reported to have said in a statement after the execution.