's 1633 series
The Great Miseries of War. Hanging has been a method of
capital punishment in many countries, and is still used by many countries to this day. Long-drop hanging is mainly used by former British colonies, while short-drop and suspension hanging is common elsewhere, in countries including Iran and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan Hanging is the most used form of capital punishment in
Afghanistan. Following the
fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the administration of the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under its first president
Hamid Karzai was hesitant to use the death penalty. Karzai signed the first death warrant in April 2004, when the method of shooting was used to execute serial killer
Abdullah Shah. In June 2011, Afghanistan resumed hanging as a method when Karzai ordered the execution of teenage terrorist
Zar Ajam and an accomplice who were convicted of a terror attack in
Jalalabad.
Australia Capital punishment was a part of the
legal system of Australia from the establishment of
New South Wales as a British penal colony, until 1985, by which time all Australian states and territories had abolished the death penalty. In practice, the last execution in Australia was the hanging of
Ronald Ryan on 3 February 1967, in
Victoria. During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included
burglary, sheep theft,
forgery,
sexual assaults, murder and
manslaughter. During the 19th century, there were roughly eighty people hanged every year throughout the Australian colonies for these crimes.
Bahamas The Bahamas employs hanging to execute the condemned, but no executions have been conducted in the country since 2000. As of 2023, there have been some inmates on death row but their sentences have been commuted.
Bangladesh Hanging is the only method of execution in
Bangladesh, ever since its independence.
Brazil Death by hanging was the customary method of capital punishment in Brazil throughout its history. Some important national heroes like
Tiradentes (1792) were killed by hanging. The last man executed in Brazil was the slave
Francisco, in 1876. The death penalty was abolished for all crimes, except for those committed under extraordinary circumstances such as war or military law, in 1890.
Bulgaria Bulgaria's national hero,
Vasil Levski, was executed by hanging by the
Ottoman court in
Sofia in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria's liberation, thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, 19 February, to his monument where the gallows stood. The last execution was in 1989, and the death penalty was abolished for all crimes in 1998. The last hangings in Canada took place on 11 December 1962. In 1982 Egypt hanged three civilians convicted of the
assassination of Anwar Sadat. In 2004, Egypt hanged five militants on charges of trying to kill the Prime Minister. To this day, hanging remains the standard method of capital punishment in Egypt, which executes more people each year than any other African country.
Germany of Polish civilians by the
Nazi Germans in German occupied
Kraków in 1942 In the territories occupied by
Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945, strangulation hanging was a preferred means of public execution, although more criminal executions were performed by
guillotine than hanging. The most commonly sentenced were
partisans and
black marketeers, whose bodies were usually left hanging for long periods. There are also numerous reports of concentration camp inmates being hanged. Hanging was continued in post-war Germany in the
British and US Occupation Zones under their jurisdiction, and for Nazi war criminals, until well after (western) Germany itself had abolished the death penalty by the
Basic Law (constitution) as adopted in 1949. West Berlin was not subject to the Basic Law and abolished the death penalty in 1951. The
German Democratic Republic abolished the death penalty in 1987. The last execution ordered by a West German court was carried out by guillotine in Moabit prison in 1949. The last hanging in Germany was the one ordered of several war criminals in
Landsberg am Lech on 7 June 1951. The last known execution in East Germany was in 1981 by a pistol shot to the neck.
Hungary The prime minister of Hungary, during the
1956 Revolution,
Imre Nagy, was secretly tried, executed by hanging, and buried unceremoniously by the new
Soviet-backed Hungarian government, in 1958. Nagy was later publicly exonerated by Hungary. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1990. The
Supreme Court of India has suggested that
capital punishment should be given only in the "rarest of rare cases". Since 2001, eight people have been executed in India. •
Dhananjoy Chatterjee, convicted for rape and murder in 1991, was executed on 14 August 2004 in
Alipore Jail, Kolkata. •
Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of the
2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed on 21 November 2012 in
Yerwada Central Jail, Pune. The Supreme Court of India had previously rejected his mercy plea, which was then rejected by the President of India. He was hanged one week later. •
Afzal Guru, a terrorist found guilty of conspiracy in the
December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, was executed by hanging in
Tihar Jail, Delhi on 9 February 2013. •
Yakub Memon was convicted over his involvement in the
1993 Bombay bombings by the Special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities court on 27 July 2007. His appeals and petitions for clemency were all rejected and he was finally executed by hanging on 30 July 2015 in Nagpur jail. • On 20 March 2020, four prisoners named Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh and Akshay Thakur who were convicted in the
2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case were executed by hanging in Tihar Jail.
Iran Hanging is the most used form of capital punishment in Iran.
Iraq Hanging was used under the regime of
Saddam Hussein, but was suspended along with capital punishment on 10 June 2003, when a coalition led by the United States
invaded and overthrew the previous regime. The death penalty was reinstated on 8 August 2004. In September 2005, three murderers were the first people to be executed since the restoration. Then on 9 March 2006, an official of Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council confirmed that Iraqi authorities had executed the first
insurgents by hanging. Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging for
crimes against humanity on 5 November 2006, and was executed on 30 December 2006 at approximately 6:00 a.m. local time. During the drop, there was an audible crack indicating that his neck was broken, a successful example of a long-drop hanging.
Barzan Ibrahim, the head of the Mukhabarat, Saddam's security agency, and
Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge, were executed on 15 January 2007, also by the long-drop method, but Barzan was decapitated by the rope at the end of his fall. Former vice-president
Taha Yassin Ramadan had been sentenced to life in prison on 5 November 2006, but the sentence was changed to death by hanging on 12 February 2007. He was the fourth and final man to be executed for the 1982 crimes against humanity on 20 March 2007. The execution went smoothly. At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousin
Ali Hassan al-Majid (nicknamed Chemical Ali by Iraqis), former defence minister
Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in the
Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds on 24 June 2007. Al-Majid was sentenced to death three more times: once for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on 2 December 2008; once for the 1999 crackdown in the assassination of
Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr on 2 March 2009; and once on 17 January 2010 for the gassing of the Kurds in 1988; he was hanged on 25 January. On 26 October 2010, Saddam's top minister
Tariq Aziz was sentenced to hang for persecuting the members of rival Shi'a political parties. His sentence was commuted to indefinite imprisonment after Iraqi president
Jalal Talabani did not sign his execution order and he died in prison in 2015. On 14 July 2011, US forces transferred condemned prisoners
Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai and two of Saddam's half-brothers,
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti and
Watban Ibrahim al-Tikriti, to Iraqi authorities for execution. The Iraqi High Tribunal had sentenced Saddam's half-brothers to death on 11 March 2009 for their roles in the executions of 42 traders who were accused of manipulating
food prices. None of the three men were executed. It is alleged that Iraq's government keeps the execution rate secret, and hundreds may be carried out every year. In 2007, Amnesty International stated that 900 people were at "imminent risk" of execution in Iraq.
Israel Israel has provisions in its criminal law to use the death penalty for extraordinary crimes. It has been used only twice for Israelis, and only one of those executions was by hanging. On 31 May 1962, Nazi leader
Adolf Eichmann was executed by hanging after having been captured in Argentina in May 1960, taken to Israel and tried and sentenced to death.
Japan All executions in Japan are carried out by hanging. On 23 December 1948,
Hideki Tojo,
Kenji Doihara,
Akira Mutō,
Iwane Matsui,
Seishirō Itagaki,
Kōki Hirota, and
Heitaro Kimura were hanged at
Sugamo Prison by the
U.S. occupation authorities in
Ikebukuro in
Allied-occupied Japan for
war crimes,
crimes against humanity, and
crimes against peace during the Asian-Pacific theatre of
World War II. On 27 February 2004, the mastermind of the
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway,
Shoko Asahara, was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. On 25 December 2006, serial killer
Hiroaki Hidaka and three others were hanged in Japan. Long-drop hanging is the method of carrying out judicial capital punishment on civilians in Japan, as in the cases of
Norio Nagayama,
Mamoru Takuma, and
Tsutomu Miyazaki. In 2018
Shoko Asahara and several of his cult members were hanged for committing the 1995 sarin gas attack.
Jordan Hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in
Jordan. On 14 August 1993, Jordan hanged two Jordanians convicted of spying for Israel.
Sajida al-Rishawi, the "4th bomber" of the
2005 Amman bombings, was executed by hanging alongside
Ziad al-Karbouly on 4 February 2015, while she was in the process of appealing her sentence for terrorism offences, in retribution for the
immolation of Jordanian pilot
Muath Al-Kasasbeh.
Kuwait Kuwait has always used hanging for execution. During the
Gulf War, Iraqi government officials executed different people for different reasons. After the war, Kuwait hanged Iraqi collaborators. Sometimes the executions are in public. The most recent executions were in 2022.
Lebanon Lebanon hanged two men in 1998 for murdering a man and his sister. However, capital punishment ended up being altogether suspended in Lebanon, as a result of staunch opposition by activists and some political factions.
Liberia , Liberia – 16 February 1979 On 16 February 1979, seven men convicted of the
ritual killing of Kru traditional singer Moses Tweh were publicly hanged at dawn in
Harper.
Malaysia Hanging is the traditional method of capital punishment in Malaysia and has been used to execute people convicted of murder, drug trafficking and waging war against the government. The
Barlow and Chambers execution was carried out as a result of new tighter drug regulations.
Pakistan In Pakistan, hanging is the most common form of execution.
Portugal The last person executed by hanging in Portugal was Francisco Matos Lobos on 16 April 1842. Before that, it had been a common death penalty.
Russia Hanging was commonly practised in the
Russian Empire during the rule of the
Romanov dynasty as an alternative to
impalement, which was used in the 15th and 16th centuries. Hanging was abolished in 1868 by
Alexander II after
serfdom, but was restored by the time of his death and his assassins were hanged. While those sentenced to death for murder were usually pardoned and sentences commuted to life imprisonment, those guilty of high treason were usually executed. This also included the
Grand Duchy of Finland and
Kingdom of Poland under the Russian crown.
Taavetti Lukkarinen became the last Finn to be executed this way. He was hanged for espionage and high treason in 1916. The hanging was usually performed by short drop in public. The gallows were usually either a stout nearby tree branch, as in the case of Lukkarinen, or a makeshift gallows constructed for the purpose. After the
October Revolution in 1917, capital punishment was, on paper, abolished, but continued to be used unabated against people perceived to be enemies of the regime. Under the Bolsheviks, most executions were performed by shooting, either by firing squad or by a single firearm. In 1943, hanging was restored primarily for German servicemen and native collaborators for atrocities committed against Soviet POWs and civilians. The last to be hanged were
Andrey Vlasov and his companions in 1946.
Singapore In
Singapore, long-drop hanging
Sri Lanka Hanging was abolished in
Sri Lanka in 1956, but in 1959 it was brought back and later halted in 1978. In 1975, the day before the execution of
Maru Sira, he had been overdosed by the prison guards to prevent him from escaping. On the day of his execution he was unconscious, so when he was brought to the gallows, he was slumped over on the trapdoor with a noose around his neck, and when the executioner pulled the lever, his execution was botched and he strangled.
Syria , publicly hanged by Syria on 18 May 1965 Syria has publicly hanged people, such as two individuals in 1952, Israeli spy
Eli Cohen in 1965, and a number of Jews accused of spying for Israel in 1969. According to a 19th-century report, members of the
Alawite sect centred on
Lattakia in Syria had a particular aversion towards being hanged, and the family of the condemned was willing to pay "considerable sums" to ensure its relations were
impaled, instead of being hanged. As far as
Burckhardt could make out, this attitude was based upon the Alawites' idea that the soul ought to leave the body through the mouth, rather than leave it in any other fashion. The
Islamic State also used hanging post-mortem, after they
executed alleged spies for the western-backed coalition in
Deir ez-Zor by
cutting their throats in a
slaughterhouse, during the Islamic holiday of
Eid al-Adha in 2016. They also used shooting, beheading, fire and other methods to execute people during their rule.
United Kingdom As a form of
judicial execution in England, hanging is thought to date from the
Anglo-Saxon period. Records of the names of British
hangmen begin with Thomas de Warblynton in the 1360s; complete records extend from the 16th century to the last hangmen,
Robert Leslie Stewart and
Harry Allen, who conducted the last British executions in 1964. Until 1868 hangings were performed in public. In London, the traditional site was at
Tyburn, a settlement west of the
City on the main road to
Oxford, which was used on eight hanging days a year, though before 1865, executions had been transferred to the street outside
Newgate Prison,
Old Bailey, now the site of the
Central Criminal Court. Three British subjects were hanged after
World War II after being convicted of having helped
Nazi Germany in its war against Britain.
John Amery, the son of prominent British politician
Leo Amery, became an
expatriate in the 1930s, moving to France. He became involved in pre-war
fascist politics, remained in what became
Vichy France following France's defeat by Germany in 1940 and eventually went to Germany and later the German puppet state in Italy headed by
Benito Mussolini. Captured by Italian
partisans at the end of the war and handed over to British authorities, Amery was accused of having made
propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis and of having attempted to recruit British
prisoners of war for a
Waffen SS regiment later known as the
British Free Corps. Amery pleaded guilty to treason charges on 28 November 1945 and was hanged at
Wandsworth Prison on 19 December 1945.
William Joyce, an American-born Irishman who had lived in Britain and possessed a British
passport, had been involved in pre-war fascist politics in the UK, fled to Nazi Germany just before the war began to avoid arrest by British authorities and became a naturalised German citizen. He made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis, becoming infamous under the nickname
Lord Haw-Haw. Captured by British forces in May 1945, he was tried for treason later that year. Although Joyce's defence argued that he was by birth American and thus not subject to being tried for treason, the prosecution successfully argued that Joyce's pre-war British passport meant that he was a subject of the British Crown and he was convicted. After his appeals failed, he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 3 January 1946.
Theodore Schurch, a British soldier captured by the Nazis who then began working for the Italian and German intelligence services as a spy and informer who would be placed among other British prisoners, was arrested in Rome in March 1945 and tried under the
Treachery Act 1940. After his conviction, he was hanged at
HM Prison Pentonville on 4 January 1946. The
Homicide Act 1957 created the new offence of
capital murder, punishable by death, with all other murders being punishable by life imprisonment. In 1965, Parliament passed the
Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, temporarily abolishing capital punishment for murder for five years. The Act was renewed in 1969, making the abolition permanent. With the passage of the
Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the
Human Rights Act 1998, the death penalty was officially abolished for all crimes in both civilian and military cases. Following its complete abolition, the gallows were removed from
Wandsworth Prison, where they remained in full working order until that year. The last woman to be hanged was
Ruth Ellis on 13 July 1955, by
Albert Pierrepoint who was a prominent hangman in the 20th century in England. The last hangings in Britain took place in 1964, when
Peter Anthony Allen was executed at
Walton Prison in
Liverpool, by
Robert Leslie Stewart.
Gwynne Owen Evans was executed by
Harry Allen at
Strangeways Prison in
Manchester. Both were executed for the
murder of John Alan West. Hanging was also the method used in many colonies and overseas territories.
Silken rope In the UK, some felons are traditionally said to have been executed by hanging with a silken rope: •
Hereditary peers who committed
capital offences, as anticipated by the fictional
Duke of Denver, brother of
Lord Peter Wimsey. The Duke was accused of murder in the novel
Clouds of Witness, and this execution would have been his fate, after conviction by his peers in a trial in the
House of Lords. It has been claimed that the execution of
Earl Ferrers in 1760 – the only time a peer was hanged after trial by the
House of Lords – was carried out with the normal hempen rope instead of a silk one. The writ of execution does not specify a silk rope be used, and
The Newgate Calendar makes no mention of the use of such an item – an unusual omission given its highly sensationalist nature. • Those who have the
Freedom of the City of London. File:Witches Being Hanged.jpg|An image of suspected
witches being hanged in England, published in 1655 File:Balvenie Pillar 2017-05-27.jpg|Balvenie Pillar, also known as (Hangman's Knoll, ). The pillar was erected in 1755 to commemorate the last public hanging in the
Atholl region of Scotland in 1630. Image:ExecutionNoose.JPG|Hanging noose used at public executions outside
Lancaster Castle, .
United States for being involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 7 July 1865 Hanging was one means by which
Puritans of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony enforced religious and intellectual conformity on the whole community. The best known hanging carried out by the Puritans,
Mary Dyer, was one of the four executed
Quakers known as the
Boston martyrs. Lethal injection is the sole method of execution for inmates sentenced to death under federal law in the United States. Of the 27 U.S. states with active death penalty statutes, none authorize hanging as a legal method of execution. Inmates sentenced to death in Delaware for crimes committed before 1986, and all condemned inmates in Washington were eligible to choose hanging as their method of execution prior to those states' abolition of capital punishment in 2016 and 2023, respectively. When
African American pastor
Denmark Vesey of the
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church was suspected of plotting to launch a
slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, 35 people, including Vesey, were judged guilty by a city-appointed court and were subsequently hanged, and the church was burned down. The
Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Dakota uprising, led to the largest mass execution in the United States when 38 Sioux Indians, who were facing starvation and displacement, attacked white settlers, for which they were sentenced to death via hanging in
Mankato, Minnesota in December 1862. In 2019, Governor
Tim Walz issued an historic apology to the Dakota people for the mass hanging and the "trauma inflicted on
Native people at the hands of state government". A total of 40 suspected
Unionists were hanged in
Gainesville, Texas, in October 1862. On 7 July 1865, four people involved in the
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—
Mary Surratt,
Lewis Powell,
David Herold, and
George Atzerodt—were hanged at
Fort McNair in
Washington, D.C. . Two of the black victims are still hanging while the third is on the ground. While relatively uncommon,
hanging in chains has also been practiced (mainly during the colonial era), the first being a slave after the
New York Slave Revolt of 1712. The last hanging in chains was in 1913, of John Marshall in
West Virginia for murder. The last public hanging in the United States (not including
lynching, one of the last of which was
Michael Donald in 1981) took place on 14 August 1936, in
Owensboro, Kentucky.
Rainey Bethea was executed for the rape and murder of 70-year-old Lischa Edwards. The execution was presided over by the first female
sheriff in Kentucky,
Florence Shoemaker Thompson. In California,
Clinton Duffy, who served as warden of
San Quentin State Prison between 1940 and 1952, presided over ninety executions. He began to oppose the death penalty, and after his retirement, wrote a memoir entitled
Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women in support of the movement to abolish the death penalty. The book documents several hangings gone wrong and describes how they led his predecessor, Warden
James B. Holohan, to persuade the California Legislature to replace hanging with the
gas chamber in 1937. Various methods of capital punishment have been replaced by
lethal injection in most states and the federal government. Many states that offered hanging as an option have since eliminated the method. Condemned murderer
Victor Feguer became the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state of
Iowa on 15 March 1963. Hanging was the preferred method of execution for capital murder cases in Iowa until 1965, when the death penalty was abolished and replaced with
life imprisonment without
parole.
Barton Kay Kirkham was the last person to be hanged in Utah, preferring it over
execution by firing squad. Laws in
Delaware were changed in 1986 to specify lethal injection, except for those convicted before 1986 (who were still allowed to choose hanging). If a choice was not made, or the convict refused to choose injection, then hanging would become the default method. This was the case in the 1996 execution of
Billy Bailey, the most recent hanging in American history; since then, no Delaware prisoner fit the category, and the state's gallows were later dismantled.
Upright jerker The upright jerker is a method of hanging that originated in the United States in the late 19th century. The person to be hanged is jerked into the air by weights and pulleys. It proved to be ineffective at breaking the neck of the condemned, and death by asphyxiation often occurred instead. In the United States, use of the method ceased in the late 1930s. ==Inverted hanging, the "Jewish" punishment==