Mock execution

members, including writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, going through an 'execution ritual', an example of a mock execution. St. Petersburg, Semionov-Plaz, 1849.B. Pokrovsky's drawing During the rule of Nicholas I of Russia In 1849, members of Russian political discussion group the Petrashevsky Circle, including writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, were convicted for high treason and sentenced to execution by firing squad. The sentences were commuted to hard labour secretly and the prisoners were told only after all the preparations for execution had been carried out. Dostoevsky described the experience in his novel The Idiot. Iran hostage crisis The American hostages held by Iran in 1979 were subjected to a mock execution by their detainers. == Contemporary use ==

By the West Side Boys In 2000, six Royal Irish Ranger were held hostage in Sierra Leone and subjected to mock executions by the West Side Boys to get information from them. Iraq War Reports of mock executions carried out by the US Marines on detainees in Iraq surfaced in December 2004, as the American Civil Liberties Union published internal documents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were written seven weeks after the publication of the photographs which triggered the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. In April 2003, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Allen West had Iraqi police officer Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi seized and brought in for questioning based on allegations he was planning an imminent attack on West's unit. After Hamoodi was allegedly beaten by an interpreter and several U.S. troops, West took Hamoodi out of the interrogation room and showed him six U.S. troops with weapons in hand. West told Hamoodi, "If you don't talk, they will kill you." West then placed Hamoodi's head in a sand-filled barrel used for clearing weapons, placed his gun into the barrel and discharged the weapon near Hamoodi's head. Hamoodi then provided West with names, location and methods of the alleged ambush, which never happened, and no evidence of any plans of attack was found. Hamoodi was released without charges; West was charged with violations of two statutes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but charges were dropped after West was fined $5,000 for the incident and allowed to resign his position with the U.S. Army without court martial. By the Islamic State In 2014, journalist James Foley was subjected to mock executions by ISIS militants before he was beheaded. Mock executions are reported to be a common torture tactic used by ISIS. == See also ==