His reports documented how Russian special forces pumped lethal gas into the theatre auditorium to subdue the hostage takers before storming in.

CNN: CNN Profiles - Matthew Chance - Senior International Correspondent

At a seminar in Abu Dhabi this week, Major-General Patrick Cordingley, a Briton who commanded a brigade in the Gulf war, maintained that Gulf security was still threatened by potentially hostile neighbours (read Iraq and Iran), ballistic missiles, lethal agents like poison gas, and internal unrest.

ECONOMIST: The Gulf

Mr Timoney said that a tear gas canister could be a lethal weapon but it was not intended to be used that way.

BBC: Bahraini dies after being struck by tear gas canister

Since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed death-penalty laws to be reinstated after a four-year hiatus, 38 of the country's 50 states have done so, though most of them have replaced electric chairs and gas chambers with the supposedly kinder system of lethal injection.

ECONOMIST: Execution reconsidered