Executioners for Sri Lanka

The hangman isn't hanging

Sep 30th 2012

WHEN the prisons department recently advertised for hangmen, several shortlisted hopefuls asked an unexpected question of its board of interviewers: What, pray, would they be expected to do?

When the duties of an executioner were laid out, the more fainthearted among the applicants turned the corner and didn’t come back. Officials later wondered whether these applicants hadn’t knownvadhaka, the Sinhala word for executioner.

Or perhaps they weren’t sure such a position still existed and had merely been drawn to the promise of a coveted government job. After all, Sri Lanka hasn’t hanged a man in 35 years.

Although suspended in 1977 (the last execution took place the previous year), capital punishment remains in the statute books. There are currently 369 convicts on death row while a further 471 have appealed their sentences.

With nothing happening at the two gallows, the prisons department wasn’t rushed to find replacements when one hangman retired and another was promoted, a year ago. But a wave of serious crime, including the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl, has reopened the debate on capital punishment.

The end of the war with Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 has also led to more reporting about the breakdown in law and order. To divert attention from the inefficiency of its politicised police force, the government has been keen to heed the populist call for executions to resume.

In June a government spokesman claimed that “the public, cabinet and members of parliament” have “reached a common belief” that the death penalty should be implemented against child molesters and drug lords.

This rhetoric hasn’t yet translated into Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president, actually authorising an execution. The law requires him to sign the death warrant. Nevertheless, prison officials, not wanting to be caught out, hurried to advertise for hangmen. As P.W. Koddipili, the commissioner general of prisons, explained, they had to be ready.

The notice, published only in the state-owned Sinhala-language newspaper, drew 178 applications. Among them was a man with one eye, who was disqualified. Other hopefuls included auto-rickshaw drivers, retired military men, labourers and a university student whose many attempts at securing other employment had failed.

Ten aspirants were rejected, mostly because they were outside the age limit of 18 to 45 years. One was a woman. The position is closed to women, as they have been deemed too emotional for the work. No other qualifications were required, beyond eighth-grade education; prisons officials worried that a more erudite class of executioner men might be tempted to chuck this job for another.

In the end, only 65 of the applicants turned up for interviews. Of these, two candidates have been identified to fill the vacancies but their names haven’t been released.

Ironically, neither of the two previous executioners hanged anybody during their tenure. Training the new recruits, therefore, poses a challenge. Indeed the question remains whether the hangmen will ever have to use their skills (supposing they are somehow acquired).

Every few years since 1977, successive governments have resolved to revive the death penalty. The reasons raised are the same as those Mr Rajapaksa’s regime is now noticing. In each of the previous instances, however, presidents have steadfastly declined to sign death warrants.

There is no reason to believe this executive will buck the trend. The mere promise of an execution or two has already tempered public outcry—as it has done in the past.

The familiar arguments that are raised against judicial executions are also getting wide publicity. Critics urge the government to strengthen law enforcement before it turns to the gallows for help. How, they ask, can you hang anybody when the criminal-justice system is so riddled with deficiencies?

Ministers are keeping silent on the matter. It wouldn’t look right to be pushing for the death penalty just weeks before coming up for peer review at the UN Human Rights Council in November. And besides everything else, the more you bang on about the need to start executions, the more you defeat your own argument that “there is no crime wave”.

This all points in one direction: a lot of hanging around in the future of the new hangmen.