Executioners

by Phil Clarke

  Nailed

  The victim was then made to stretch out his arms which were then affixed to the cross-beam either by rope or nails. These nails were in fact tapered spikes of up to 18 centimetres (7 inches) in length. They were made of iron – an expensive material at this time – and so were often removed from the dead and re-used or sold as healing amulets.

  There are several schools of thought regarding how these nails were applied. The usual depiction of those on the cross has the nails through the hands of the victim, but for this to be feasible there would need to be some method of support by ropes or the inclu­sion of a footrest or sedile; a small seat attached halfway down the vertical beam. Without this, the nails would simply rip through the hands as the weight of the body would be too great. Another belief is that the nails were entered through the wrists between the four carpal bones and two forearm bones as depicted in the Shroud of Turin. Another consideration combines the previous two suggesting the nails went in at the hand at a downward angle passing through the carpal tunnel and, from there, entered the olive post. Whatever the technique, the pain would have been excruciating. Adding insult to injury, it is a distinct possibility that even the victim’s genitals were nailed to the sedile – far from an aid to support but purely to increase the agony and indeed the shame of the condemned.

  The Cross

  The cross evolved from simple origins. Early crucifixions used trees to crucify their criminals and this was actually called ‘fastening to a tree’. It is thought that the Gibeonites’ tree-hanging of King Saul’s seven children was an early form of crucifixion. It then developed into a single wooden stake planted in the ground, much as Jehovah’s witnesses describe Christ’s crucifixion. There then came the addition of the horizontal beam which was either fixed at the top of the vertical ‘stipes’ to form a T-shaped cross (known as the Tau or St Anthony’s Cross) or attached slightly further down to create the more familiar Latin cross that became the symbol of Christianity.

  In fact, crucifixes were constructed in many different shapes. In addition to the ‘T’, there existed both ‘Y’ and ‘X’-shaped crosses. The positions in which a victim could be crucified seem to be limited only by the imaginations of the cruel and sadistic rulers of the time. If the usual method of crucifixion was not deemed torturous enough, Roman execu­tioners later took to crucifying the condemned upside down! This is known as the Cross of St Peter after the disciple who requested this amendment because he did not feel worthy enough to die in the same way as Jesus.

  Death

  Death on the cross was far from instantaneous. If the victim managed to survive the scourging along the journey to the execution site followed by the brutal penetration of the nails through extremities, he was in for hours or even days of unbearable suffering.

  The cause of death has been a matter of debate. It is widely believed that death came from asphyxi­ation due to the hyper-expansion of the lungs. To assist breathing, the victim would endeavour to raise his body up by his arms or use the footrest to take the body’s weight. This theory has since come under question after experiments apparently showed no inhalation problems while suspended by the arms.

  There are accounts of those who survived the cross in the face of such immense pain. Josephus tells of two friends he saw being crucified and, using his sway with the state, managed to obtain the necessary reprieves. During the English Civil War, when crucifixion allegedly made an alarming return under Oliver Cromwell’s government, a woman called Agnes Griffin was reported to have been nailed to a tree and forced to eat her own flesh and drink her own blood. Despite enduring such torment, she survived and was even given money by

  the justices.

  However, these cases were few and far between. Crucifixion was intended to be a capital punishment and so death to the condemned was, for the most part, inevitable. The bodies would be allowed to decay upon the cross. This was the final insult. In ancient times, burial was an act assigning honour to the dead. To be left above the earth to endure the weather and mutilation from the circling vultures was deemed a great dishonour and, to a Jew, would mean the dead remained ‘under God’s curse’.

  Crucifixion, then, was a comprehensive method of punishment intending not only to humiliate and in­flict pain upon the condemned but with the public nature of the whole process. From carrying the crossbeam past the heckling crowds to the slow deaths beyond the city walls, it acted as a deterrent to all would-be dissenters and wrongdoers of the time. It also provided a lawful avenue for the savage degener­ate to create imaginative methods of inducing the most amount of pain. This avenue was finally closed with the eventual abolition of crucifixion during the reign of Constantine I when, in c.337 ad, Christianity became the state religion.

  Stoning

  ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone’

  John: 8.7

  Born out of a need for community justice, stoning, or lapidation is the oldest form of capital punishment. It is at least as old as written language and the most common method of execution meted out in the Bible. It is mentioned in Greek history as well as Christian, Jewish and Islamic texts.

  Stoning in Judaism

  There is evidence to suggest that the Jews were the first people to practise stoning. The Torah, like the Koran, describes God-approved punishments for particular sins. The punishment known as ‘sekila’ (or stoning) is set aside in the Torah for serious sexual and religious crimes such as incest, bestiality, idolatry, sourcery and witchcraft. Lewis’s Origins of the Hebrews, describes the following horrific execution from biblical times:

  ‘When the offender came within four cubits of the place of execution he was stripped naked, only leav­ing a place before, and his hands being bound, he was led up to the fatal place, which was in eminence twice a man’s height. The first executioners were the witnesses, who generally pulled off their clothes for the purpose: one of them threw him down with great violence upon his loins; if he rolled upon his breast, he was rolled upon his loins again, and if he died by the fall there was an end. But not if the other witnesses took a great stone, and dashed it upon his breast as he lay upon his back, and then if he was not dispatched, all the people who stood by threw stones at him until he was dead.’

  Although Jewish religious law officially approves the use of sekila, no Rabbinal courts today administer sentences involving any form of capital punishment.

  Stoning in Christianity

  Christians have come in for (and have also been responsible for) some pretty brutal executions throughout history. St Stephen was the first Christian to die for his faith, he was tried by the Sanhedin for blaspheming against Moses and God, and stoned to death by an angry mob outside the city walls. As a result, he is often depicted in art clutching three stones in his palm.

  In seventeenth century Italy, Giovanni Pelanchion refused to convert to Papism, and as a result he was tied by one leg to the tail of a mule and dragged through the streets of Lucerne while being stoned by the towns­people. They believed that the devil possessed him and kept him alive using evil powers, so they took Giovanni to the riverside and chopped off his head, whereby the devil promptly gave him up. Giovanni died on the riverbank and was left there to rot, unburied.

  Death in the Pillory

  Although stoning has never been widely practised in Britain, sometimes an hour in the pillory amounted to the same thing. During the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, prisoners who were sentenced to a spell in the pillory had more to worry about than rotten tomatoes. Criminals convicted of attempted sodomy, seditious words, extortion, fraud and perjury were punished pubicly in an attempt to discredit their reputations. Pillories were built in busy places such as Charing Cross in London, where crowds could easily gather. The prisoner was placed on a raised platform with his head and arms secured in a wooden structure.

  The pillory was positioned so that crowds could gather on all sides of the platform and pelt their victim with various missiles includ
ing rotten vegetables and eggs, blood and guts from slaughter­houses, dead animals, mud, excrement and even bricks and stones. Many people died as a result. The highwaymen and murderers Egan and Salmon were subjected to the pillory on Park Lane in London in March 1756. This account is given in the Newgate Calendar:

  Egan and Salmon were taken to Smithfield amidst a surprising concourse of people, who no sooner saw the offenders exposed on the pillory, than they pelted them with stones, brickbats, potatoes, dead dogs and cats, oyster shells and other things. The constables now interposed but, being soon overpowered the offenders were left to the mercy of the enraged mob. The blows they received occasioned their heads to swell to an enormous size; and by the people hanging on to the skirts of their clothing they were near strangled. They had been on the pillory for about half an hour when a stone struck Egan on the head, and he immediately expired.

  It is interesting to note that Salmon, Egan’s partner in crime, was not much luckier than him. On that occasion the ordeal in the pillory halted with Egan’s violent death, but Salmon died in squalor at Newgate Gaol soon afterwards.

  Stoning: The Technique

  Stoning is an unusual method of execution because it involves the community directly in the kill instead of a single executioner. For this reason it bares some similarities with the most contemporary form of execution: lethal injection.

  Death By Collective

  Lethal injection involves as many as three technicians but only one of them actually administers the fatal dose – the other two carry dummy doses. None of the technicians will ever find out which one of them administered the poison. In the same way, the ‘inclu­sive’ nature of stoning means that none of the parti­cipants will ever know which stone struck the fatal blow. If a judge and jury can be said to deliver the ‘people’s’ verdict, than death by stoning ensures that the people, rather than the court, the government or the prison warden, literally deliver the sentence. The problem with this is that it implicates the entire community – making murderers out of everybody, even if it does so with the approval of God himself.

  The Festival of Gotmar Mela

  The festival of Gotmar is staged the day after the Krishna Paksha ‘amavasya’, during the Hindu month of Bhadon. It is a festival ‘celebrated’ by the inhabi­tants of Savargoan and Pandhurna near the city of Chindwara, India. Gotmar literally translates as ‘hitting with pellets’, and the name describes exactly what happens during the festival. Over 5,000 people gather to throw stones at each other. The story behind the festival is an ancient and a fascinating one:

  In olden times (the exact period is unknown), the ruler of Pandhurna got to hear about the beautiful daughter of the raja of the nighbouring town of Savagaon on the other side of the river Jam. He successfully crossed the river and abducted this lady from the palace of Savagaon. But the people of Savagaon became aware of this and chased the abductor, pelting him with rocks as he crossed the river. The people of Pandhurna were gathered on the riverside and, seeing their leader attacked with rocks, began retaliating. The raja of Pandhurna was success­ful in reaching the other side of the river, and for this reason it is thought that he had the protection of the goddess Chandi.

  The Gotmar festival is held each year to com­memorate the incident. It is estimated that between 750 and 900 people are injured in the skirmishes every year and inevitably some are killed, the violence being fuelled with illegal alcohol. In recent years, attempts have been made to ban the festival, or at least to ensure that alcohol is not available to buy on the day, but still the people of Pandhurna and Savargaon insist on celebrating Gotmar. The injured go immediately to a local temple hoping to be miracu­lously healed by the goddess Chandi.

  Widespread Condemnation

  Many human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have long condemned the use of stoning as particularly barbaric, and the fact that it is most often employed as a punishment for so-called moral crimes (such as prostitution or adultery) rather than those most would consider to be serious crimes (such as murder, drug dealing or rape) makes this form of punishment even more controversial in the eyes of western governments. International pressure means that often in these cases a stoning sentence is passed, but later quashed or commuted to a lesser punish­ment such as lashes or a prison sentence.

  There are no non-religious courts left in the world that legally recognise this form of punishment. The United Nations has concluded that treating adultery or consensual fornication as a criminal offence goes against international standards of human rights. However, it has been, and is to a lesser extent, still in use in areas of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa where sharia law is practised.

  Stoning in Sharia Law

  Sharia law literally translates as ‘The Path to the Water Source’ and it denotes a system of criminal justice, but it is actually meant as a code for living. Many Muslims believe that sharia law is a necessary factor in the life of a good Muslim. Under sharia there are a number of crimes known as Hadd offences. These are crimes which carry certain pre-ordained penalties such as stoning, lashes or amputation. These penalties have apparently been laid out in the Koran by the prophet Mohammed, and they apply to crimes such as unlawful intercourse, false accusation of unlawful intercourse, the drinking of alcohol, theft and highway robbery. More women than men tend to be accused, tried and found guilty of unlawful inter­course and therefore they are more likely to fall victim to this most violent punishment.

  Stoning or Crushing?

  Some historical references to stoning actually pertain to the practise of crushing a victim to death using large, heavy stones. This technique was once used for torture in British prisons, but for the purpose of the book we have covered executions of this type in Piene Forte Et Dure on pages 274–83.

  The most common stoning method puts the emphasis well and truly on a slow and painful death, rather than quick and painless euthanasia. It is important that the prisoner does suffer. Typically the victim’s hands are tied behind their back and they are wrapped head to toe in white cloth. Then they are partially buried in the ground in order to keep them still. A male prisoner is buried up to the waist and a female is usually buried up to her shoulders or her neck. Then a circle is drawn around the prisoner and the congregation are asked to select stones which are small enough that they could not cause death with a single blow, but big enough to inflict significant harm. The congregation take their positions on the outside of the circle, and the victim is then pelted with stones until they are obviously dead. Death is eventually caused either by excessive blood loss or serious head trauma. The process is extremely painful and it can take up to an hour for death to occur. Sometimes the victims parents, their spouse and even their children are forced to witness the killing.

  Iraq

  Stoning was still in use in some parts of Iraq as recently as May 2007. 17-year-old Du’a Khalil Aswad had been born and brought up within a Kurdish religious group called Yezidi. She had the misfortune to meet and fall in love with a boy from a sunni- muslim background. As a result of this relationship, Du’a was condemend to death by male members of her family and hard-line religious leaders, in the belief that she had shamed them by failing to return home one night. Some reports suggested she had also converted to Islam in order to be closer to her boyfriend. Du’a sought shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, a Kurdish town near the northern capital of Mosul. A large crowd gathered to watch as eight or nine men stormed the house and dragged the young woman out into the street. They pelted her with rocks for half an hour until she was killed. A month later a video of the execution appeared on the Internet.

  Iran

  Officially, the administration in Tehran called a moratorium on stoning in 2002, but Ammesty International and other human-rights groups claim that the practise continues to this day. In 2005, the organisation Women Against Fundamentalism in Iran, claimed that there had been ten stonings during the first six months of 2002, and a further twenty-six reporte
d cases of stoning between 2002 and 2005 – seventeen of those victims were women and the majority were convicted of unlawful intercourse.

  According to the Women Against Fundamentalism website, article 99 of the Islamic Punishment Act stipulates that:

  Whenever the act of adultery is confirmed based on his or her own testimony, during the stoning process, the religious judge should throw the first stone and the others follow. But if adultery is confirmed based on the testimony of witnesses, first the witnessness throw stones and then the religious judge and subsequently the others.

  The act stipulates that no less than three believers should be present while the sentence is carried out. Interestingly, it also states that, in the unlikely event that the prisoner manages to pull themselves out of the ditch, the stoning should be called off. In some countries if this happens the condmened is usually shot dead as they make their escape.