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Brit Who Was Champion Hangman of All Time

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

The Times of London - Jan 15, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2548900,00.html

The British expert who ensured a swift, clean death

by David Brown

Techniques perfected by the renowned British hangman Albert Pierrepoint
were said to have been studied by the Iraqi executioners.

If that is so, then the most prolific British executioner of the 20th
century would have been horrified by the decapitation of Barzan al-Tikriti.

Mr Pierrepoint was meticulous in his preparation to avoid such errors,
which were not uncommon before he was appointed chief hangman in 1946.

Most important was the art of judging the "drop" -- the length of rope
required to kill the condemned as quickly and painlessly as possible. Too
long and the force of the fall would decapitate the prisoner -- as happened
in Baghdad -- too short and it would slowly strangle him.