Man executed by firing squad in South Carolina

A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year.

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

"Tonight, the state of South Carolina executed him by firing squad -- a horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society," defense lawyer David Weiss said in a statement. "Mikal died in full view of a system that failed him at every turn -- from childhood to his final breath."

Myers found Mahdi hiding in a garden shed at his home before Mahdi killed him and set the body on fire.

South Carolina gives its death row inmates a choice between lethal injection, the electric chair and the firing squad. Mahdi chose the firing squad.