Sri Lanka looking to hire executioners for US$200 a month as it resumes hanging for drug trafficking
- Candidates should be Sri Lankan, male, aged between 18 and 45, and have both ‘excellent moral character’ and ‘mental strength’, said an advertisement in the local newspapers
- Sri Lanka’s last hangman quit in 2014 without ever having to execute anyone, citing stress after seeing the gallows for the first time. Another hired last year never turned up for work
Sri Lanka began advertising for hangmen this week, as the country’s president pushes ahead with a hardline policy to combat drug trafficking.
During a state visit to the Philippines in January, Sirisena had praised President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, despite international criticism of a campaign that has resulted in thousands of people being killed in encounters with police.
Drug trafficking is a capital offence in Sri Lanka although no one has been executed for any crime in the country since 1976 as all death penalties have been commuted to life in prison since then.
The country’s last hangman quit in 2014 without ever having to execute anyone, citing stress after seeing the gallows for the first time. Another hired last year never turned up for work.
Anticipating that capital punishment could soon be used again, the prison service is hurrying to recruit two executioners.