South Carolina executes Mikhal Mahdi in second firing squad execution this year

April 11 (UPI) -- South Carolina prison officials put a man to death by firing squad for the second time in just over a month when they executed Mikal Mahdi on Friday in Columbia.

Mahdi was convicted of the 2004 murder of off-duty Orangeburg Public Safety Capt. James Myers, 56.

Mahdi, 42, was declared dead at 6:05 p.m. EDT at the Broad River Correctional Institute, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

He was strapped to a metal chair while wearing a hood, and three corrections staff shot him in the heart simultaneously using rifles at 6:01 p.m.

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The shooters were 15 feet behind a wall with an opening for the weapons.

"I want to apologize to the family of Janet Acosta and Caroline Holder for taking their lives," he said through a speaker piped into the witness area.

"Heavenly Father, please do not blame those who do not know what they're doing."

Witnesses included the sister of Myers, a prosecutor in the case, a Calhoun County Sheriff's Office representative, his attorney David Weiss and three news media members.

Weiss described the execution as "barbaric" and "a horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society."

Madi was served his last meal Friday night.

"Mahdi's specially requested meal was a ribeye steak cooked medium, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens, cheesecake and sweet tea," the corrections department said in a news release.

In early March, the South Carolina Department of Corrections executed Brad Sigmon by firing squad, marking the first execution by that method in the state and the fifth overall since the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the practice in 1976.

Sigmon's death was the first firing squad execution in the United States in 15 years. The other three have all occurred in Utah.

Executions also can be conducted in Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Mahdi was the third inmate to be put to death in South Carolina this year and the 12th in the United States.

Mahdi was 21 when he shot and killed Myers in July 2004. Court records state he waited on the law enforcement officer's property in Calhoun County, S.C., with a rifle for him to return. He then burned his body and stole several firearms.

At the time, police were looking for Mahdi for another shooting death in the area as well as an armed robbery and carjacking.

Mahdi chose the firing squad option over lethal injection or the electric chair, South Carolina's two other execution methods.

Weiss said he and Mahdi viewed the electric chair as being "cook[ed] from the inside out," while calling the lethal injection method "quite torturous."

Mahdi's legal team earlier in the week filed a clemency request Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected his appeal last week.

During the execution, the inmate is strapped to the chair in the facility's death chamber, housing the electric chair, which cannot be removed, according to prison officials. A target is then strapped over their heart.

Three corrections staff volunteered for the duty.

As with other execution methods, witnesses sit in an adjacent room and watch through protective glass until the procedure is over.

"It's a difficult sight to reconcile in real-time. You're watching it happening. You're thinking, I just saw a hole open up in that person," lawyer Bo King, who represented Sigmon and was present at his execution in March, told Fox News Digital.

"The amount of damage that I saw done to Brad's body is beyond anything that I would consider."

Michael Tanzi was put to death in Florida on Tuesday.