Do you really stay conscious after being decapitated?
The molecular biologist Francis Crick, one half of the research team that discovered the structure of DNA,
later in his career came up with what he called The Astonishing
Hypothesis. It is, crudely put, the idea that every aspect of human
consciousness -- from affinity for one's family, to a belief in God, to
the experience of the color green -- is merely the result of electrical
activity in our brains' neural networks. As he wrote in 1994, "You're
nothing but a pack of neurons" [source: Crick].
At the basis of our conscious experience are chemicals called neurotransmitters. These chemicals generate electrical signals that form the means by which neurons communicate with one another and ultimately form neural networks. When we stimulate these networks, we experience the physical sensations and emotions that make up our lives. We store these as memories to be recalled when the neural networks that store them are activated once more.
The idea may be a bit glum, but it forms the basis of the idea that the electrical activity in the brain is the detectable trace of our conscious experience. By correlation, then, so long as we can detect this electrical activity -- through the use of technology like electroencephalography (EEG), which measures brain waves -- we can assume that a person is experiencing consciousness. This is what makes a 2011 study from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands so troubling.
To determine whether decapitation, a common method of euthanizing lab rats, is humane, the researchers connected an EEG machine to the brains of rats, decapitated them and recorded the electrical activity in the brain after the event. The Dutch researchers found that for about four seconds after being separated from the body, the rats' brains continued to generate electrical activity between the 13 to 100-Hertz frequency band, which is associated with consciousness and cognition, defined as "a mental process that includes thinking" [source: Cleveland Clinic].
This finding suggests that the brain can continue to produce thoughts and experience sensations for at least several seconds following decapitation -- in rats, at least. Although findings in rats are commonly extrapolated onto humans, we may never fully know if a human remains similarly conscious after the head is lost. As author Alan Bellows points out, "Further scientific observation of human decapitation is unlikely" [source: Bellows].
Yet the annals of medicine following the invention of the guillotine have some very interesting scientific observations of human decapitation. These suggest it is possible to remain conscious after losing one's head. First, let's look at how we've removed heads in the past.
At the basis of our conscious experience are chemicals called neurotransmitters. These chemicals generate electrical signals that form the means by which neurons communicate with one another and ultimately form neural networks. When we stimulate these networks, we experience the physical sensations and emotions that make up our lives. We store these as memories to be recalled when the neural networks that store them are activated once more.
The idea may be a bit glum, but it forms the basis of the idea that the electrical activity in the brain is the detectable trace of our conscious experience. By correlation, then, so long as we can detect this electrical activity -- through the use of technology like electroencephalography (EEG), which measures brain waves -- we can assume that a person is experiencing consciousness. This is what makes a 2011 study from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands so troubling.
To determine whether decapitation, a common method of euthanizing lab rats, is humane, the researchers connected an EEG machine to the brains of rats, decapitated them and recorded the electrical activity in the brain after the event. The Dutch researchers found that for about four seconds after being separated from the body, the rats' brains continued to generate electrical activity between the 13 to 100-Hertz frequency band, which is associated with consciousness and cognition, defined as "a mental process that includes thinking" [source: Cleveland Clinic].
This finding suggests that the brain can continue to produce thoughts and experience sensations for at least several seconds following decapitation -- in rats, at least. Although findings in rats are commonly extrapolated onto humans, we may never fully know if a human remains similarly conscious after the head is lost. As author Alan Bellows points out, "Further scientific observation of human decapitation is unlikely" [source: Bellows].
Yet the annals of medicine following the invention of the guillotine have some very interesting scientific observations of human decapitation. These suggest it is possible to remain conscious after losing one's head. First, let's look at how we've removed heads in the past.
Queen Anne Boleyn was one of the rare executed whose head was taken in a single blow.
Hulton Archives/Getty Images
A History of Head Loss
Cutting the head from the body has long been used as a means of execution, whether extrajudicial or state-sanctioned. For example, in the Biblical Apocrypha, a widow named Judith famously cuts off the head of an Assyrian general named Holofernes, who had been laying siege to her town [source: Vatican]. Civilizations throughout history have used beheadings as a means of punishment. The Romans considered it a more honorable means of execution and decidedly less painful than crucifixion, which it used to execute non-citizens [source: Clark]. In Medieval Europe, beheading was used by the ruling class to dispatch nobles and peasants alike. Eventually, most of the world abandoned beheading as a form of capital punishment, viewing it as barbaric and inhumane. That said, judicial beheading is legal today in the Middle Eastern states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran [source: Weinberg].The factors that have always made beheading so brutal are the tools used in beheadings and the people who use those tools. The axe and the sword have always been the favored implements of beheading, but they can go blunt and are subject to the physical force exerted by the executioner. While in some cultures, like Saudi Arabia, executioners are highly trained in their jobs, some historical cultures allowed unskilled workers to act as headsmen, or executioners who performed beheadings. The result was that it often took a number of blows to the neck and spine to sever the head from the body, meaning a painful and torturous death.
The guillotine was introduced in the late 18th century as a humane alternative to beheading. Contrary to popular belief, the instrument doesn't get its name from its inventor; in actuality, surgeon Antoine Louis invented the guillotine. The machine's namesake, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, was a physician who called for a humane means of dispatching the convicted and championed the device that now bears his name. With the invention of the guillotine, executions could be carried out more efficiently and post-Revolutionary France officially adopted the contraption in 1792. This major increase in efficiency led to the Reign of Terror in France, in which more than 30,000 people suffered the guillotine in one year alone [source: McCannon]. France used the guillotine for state-sanctioned executions until it removed the last head in 1977.
The guillotine developed a dreaded reputation in France. The author Victor Hugo wrote, "One can have a certain indifference on the death penalty as long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes" [source: Davies]. But almost from the beginning of its use, many sensed the guillotine worked almost too precisely.
A guillotine in an alley in France, circa 1920. Not
the shield at front right that was used to prevent the head from rolling
away.
Archive Holdings, Inc./Getty Images
The Guillotine Excels at Decapitation
The circulatory system delivers oxygen and other necessary particles via blood to the brain so that it can carry out its necessary functions. Deprived of oxygen or blood, the brain's function deteriorates rapidly. Circulation takes place in a closed system based on a pressurized environment; blood is pumped in and out of the heart and past the lungs, where it is refreshed once more. Decapitation opens this closed system irrevocably, causing a full and massive drop in blood pressure, leaving the brain starved of both blood and oxygen.Depending upon how the head is removed from the body, this loss of blood and ultimately consciousness can take longer in some modes of decapitation than in others. Several blows to the back of the neck with a sword or axe can lead to blood loss before the head is fully severed from the body. But the guillotine's design in particular makes severing the head cleaner and quicker. The blade and mouton (weight) assembly of the guillotine weighed more than 175 pounds (80 kilograms) and was dropped from a height of 14 feet (4.3 meters) from ground level onto the back of the victim's neck [sources: Guillotine.info, Davies].
Moreover, the guillotine's blade was set within a track leading in a direct line down to the back of the victim's neck, improving the chances that a head will drop rather than be sent flying toward the crowd. A wooden screen called a shield further prevented any potential trajectory for a flying head. Instead, the victim's head generally went into the basket situated handily beneath the victim's head.
This made for quick and easy retrieval of the head by the executioner -- who merely pulled a lever -- after it was cut off. Picking up the head to show to the crowd was customary, and occasionally the executioner showed disrespect to the head as well. This was the case with Charlotte Corday, a woman executed by guillotine in France in 1793 after she assassinated the revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat.
After her head was severed, the executioner smacked its cheeks while he held it aloft. To the astonishment of the crowd, Corday's cheeks flushed and her facial expression changed into the "unequivocal marks of indignation" [source: Ernle, et al].
Corday was the first, though not the last, severed head reported to show the signs of consciousness following decapitation.
Implications of Consciousness after Decapitation
There has long been an argument against the concept of consciousness following decapitation. Some believe that the movements seen in the face are the result of the voluntary muscles that control the lips and eyes are merely in spasm after a sort of short circuit or from relic electrical activity. This is likely true for the rest of the body, but the head has the distinction of housing the brain, which is the seat of consciousness. The brain receives no trauma from a clean decapitation and may therefore continue to function until blood loss causes unconsciousness and death.Exactly how long a person can remain conscious after decapitation remains debatable. We know that chickens often walk around for several seconds after decapitation; the Dutch rat study mentioned earlier suggests a length of perhaps four seconds. Other studies of small mammals have found up to 29 seconds [source: Khuly]. This in itself seems a horrid length of time for such a state. Take a moment to count off four seconds while you look around the room; you'll likely find you can take in quite a bit visually and aurally during that time.
This is what is most disturbing about the concept of consciousness remaining after decapitation; we may feel pain and experience fear in those few moments before death. This has been reported in a number of cases where consciousness appeared to remain following decapitation. Most recently, in 1989, an Army veteran reported that following a car accident that he was in with a friend, the decapitated head of his friend changed facial expressions: "First of shock or confusion then to terror or grief," [source: Bellows].
Both King Charles I and Queen Anne Boleyn are reported to both have showed signs of trying to speak following their beheadings (by executioners' swords, rather than by guillotine) [source: Maslin]. When he spoke out against the use of the guillotine in 1795, German researcher S.T. Sommering cited reports of decapitated heads that have ground their teeth and that the face of one decapitated person "grimaced horribly" when a physician inspecting the head poked the spinal canal with his finger [source: Sommering].
Perhaps most famously was the study conducted by a Dr. Beaurieux in 1905 of the head of executed criminal Henri Languille. Over the course of 25 to 30 seconds of observation, the physician recorded managing to get Languille to open his eyes and "undeniably" focus them on the doctor's twice by calling the executed man's name [source: Bellows].
For more information on decapitation and other forms of capital punishment, head over to the next page.
Lots More Information
Related Articles
- How can I have an out-of-body experience?
- How Déjà Vu Works
- How Near-death Experiences Work
- Has science explained life after death?
- The Ultimate Supernatural Quiz
- Top 5 Real-life Haunted Houses
Sources
- Barrett, Sam. "The first few minutes after death." Popular Science. October 31, 2008. http://www.popsci.com/sam-barrett/article/2008-10/first-few-minutes-after-death#
- Bellows, Alan. "Lucid decapitation." Damn Interesting. April 8, 2006. http://www.damninteresting.com/lucid-decapitation
- Clark, Richard. "Beheading." Capital Punishment UK. Accessed March 17, 2011. http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/behead.html
- Cleveland Clinic. "Stroke glossary." Accessed March 17, 2011.http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/stroke/hic_stroke_glossary.aspx
- Davies, Lizzy. "French guillotine exhibition opens 33 years after the last head fell." Guardian. March 16, 2010.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/16/guillotine-museum-france-paris
- Ernle, Baron Rowland Edmund Prothero. "The Quarterly Review, volume 73." John Murray. 1844. http://books.google.com/books?id=_VQAAAAAYAAJ
- Khuly, Dr. Patty. "Off with her head? Decapitation not always best, say researchers." PetMD. November 19, 2010.http://www.petmd.com/blogs/fullyvetted/2010/nov/decaps_not_best
- Lane, David Christopher. "The Astonishing Hypothesis." MSAC Philosophy Group. 1994. http://dlane5.tripod.com/crick2.html
- Leinhard, John H. "No. 1448: Guillotin/Guillotine ." University of Houston. Accessed March 18, 2011. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1448.htm
- Maslin, Janet. "Once more, revisiting Anne Boleyn yet again." New York Times. December 16, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/books/17book.html
- McCannon, John. "Barron's AP World History." Barron's Educational Series. 2008. http://books.google.com/books?id=bNyGSRxHaBgC
- Sommering, S.T. "Letter to the Paris Monitor, 1795." Reprinted in Roach, Mary. "Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers." Pp. 136. W.W. Norton and Company. 2004. http://www.scribd.com/doc/48885659/Roach-Mary-Stiff-The-Curious-Life-of-Human-Cadavers
- The Guillotine.info. "About the man Joseph Guillotin." Accessed March 17, 2011. http://www.theguillotine.info/facts/josephguillotin.php
- The Guillotine.info. "How the guillotine works." Accessed March 20, 2011. http://www.theguillotine.info/how/
- van Rijn, Clementina M., et al. "Decapitation in rats: latency to unconsciousness and the 'wave of death'." PLoS One. January 27, 2011. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0016514
- Vatican Museums. "Judith and Holofernes (Judith 13.1-10)." Accessed March 17, 2011. http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/x-Schede/CSNs/CSNs_V_Penn_01.html
- Webster's Online Dictionary. "Extended definition: decapitation." Accessed March 20, 2011. http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/decapitation?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=decapitation&sa=Search#906
- Weinberg, Jon. "Sword of justice? Beheadings rise in Saudi Arabia." Entrepreneur. Winter 2008. http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/177028385.htm
THEIR careers are to kill people.
Meet Egypt's official executioner, Hajj Abd al-Nabi, and Saudi Arabia executioner Abdallah Al-Bishi.Al-Nabi favours strangulation while his Saudi counterpart brandishes a sword.
Earlier today we told how al-Nabi recently boasted of killing more than 800 people - and loving every minute of it.
"In all honesty, I love my work. I just love it! I never say 'no' when they need me at work," al-Nabi says in a bizarre interview with Egypt's Video 7.
LIST OF OFFICIAL EXECUTIONERS
In the video, translated this week by the respected Washington-based MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), al-Nabi animatedly discusses his calling with more than a hint of pride.
The hangman says he kills only criminals and is doing Allah's work.
"I love people, and people love me,' he said. "But when it comes to carrying out my job, I am tough.
World
Executioners in Saudi and Egypt tell of their love of killing people
- 4 months ago November 01, 2013
THEIR careers are to kill people.
Meet Egypt's official executioner, Hajj Abd al-Nabi, and Saudi Arabia executioner Abdallah Al-Bishi.Al-Nabi favours strangulation while his Saudi counterpart brandishes a sword.
Earlier today we told how al-Nabi recently boasted of killing more than 800 people - and loving every minute of it.
"In all honesty, I love my work. I just love it! I never say 'no' when they need me at work," al-Nabi says in a bizarre interview with Egypt's Video 7.
LIST OF OFFICIAL EXECUTIONERS
In the video, translated this week by the respected Washington-based MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), al-Nabi animatedly discusses his calling with more than a hint of pride.
The hangman says he kills only criminals and is doing Allah's work.
"I love people, and people love me,' he said. "But when it comes to carrying out my job, I am tough."
Egypt’s hangman Hajj Abd al-Nabi has killed more than 800 people. Picture: Video7 via MEMRI TV
Source: Supplied
The interview is extremely strange, by Western standards - but not even opponents of MEMRI have challenged its authenticity, and a spokesman for the institute assured us the clip is real.
More on MEMRI below
Al-Nabi throws his massive hands around excitedly throughout the four-minute clip, saying he learnt his skills as a child.
"I was a little Satan," he admitted.
As a 13 and 14-year-old "my hobby was to catch a cat, to place a rope around its neck, to strangle it, and throw it into the water.
"I would get hold of any animal - even dogs. I would strangle these animals and throw them into the water - even dogs.
"Strangulation was my hobby.
"When I applied for the job and did well on the tests - proving that I could take the psychological pressure and so on - they said: 'Congratulations. Now, grow a moustache' " - presumably a reference to moustaches being a sign of machismo in the Middle East.
But al-Nabi, the chief warrant officer in Egypt's police and prison authority, admits that he "has a heart of stone".
"Only if you have a heart of stone can you be content in this line of work," he said.
Saudi Arabia's leading executioner is Abdallah al-Bishi, who like his father before him can execute 10 people in one single day. His style of killing is by decapitation, using a sword (sulthan). He also removes limbs by his sword under the country's sharia law.
World
Executioners in Saudi and Egypt tell of their love of killing people
- 4 months ago November 01, 2013
THEIR careers are to kill people.
Meet Egypt's official executioner, Hajj Abd al-Nabi, and Saudi Arabia executioner Abdallah Al-Bishi.Al-Nabi favours strangulation while his Saudi counterpart brandishes a sword.
Earlier today we told how al-Nabi recently boasted of killing more than 800 people - and loving every minute of it.
"In all honesty, I love my work. I just love it! I never say 'no' when they need me at work," al-Nabi says in a bizarre interview with Egypt's Video 7.
LIST OF OFFICIAL EXECUTIONERS
In the video, translated this week by the respected Washington-based MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), al-Nabi animatedly discusses his calling with more than a hint of pride.
The hangman says he kills only criminals and is doing Allah's work.
"I love people, and people love me,' he said. "But when it comes to carrying out my job, I am tough."
Egypt’s hangman Hajj Abd al-Nabi has killed more than 800 people. Picture: Video7 via MEMRI TV
Source: Supplied
The interview is extremely strange, by Western standards - but not even opponents of MEMRI have challenged its authenticity, and a spokesman for the institute assured us the clip is real.
More on MEMRI below
Al-Nabi throws his massive hands around excitedly throughout the four-minute clip, saying he learnt his skills as a child.
"I was a little Satan," he admitted.
As a 13 and 14-year-old "my hobby was to catch a cat, to place a rope around its neck, to strangle it, and throw it into the water.
"I would get hold of any animal - even dogs. I would strangle these animals and throw them into the water - even dogs.
"Strangulation was my hobby.
"When I applied for the job and did well on the tests - proving that I could take the psychological pressure and so on - they said: 'Congratulations. Now, grow a moustache' " - presumably a reference to moustaches being a sign of machismo in the Middle East.
Hajj Abd al-Nabi says he was a ‘litte Satan’ as a child and would hone his skills on cats and dogs.
Source: Supplied
But al-Nabi, the chief warrant officer in Egypt's police and prison authority, admits that he "has a heart of stone".
"Only if you have a heart of stone can you be content in this line of work," he said.
Saudi Arabia's leading executioner is Abdallah al-Bishi, who like his father before him can execute 10 people in one single day. His style of killing is by decapitation, using a sword (sulthan). He also removes limbs by his sword under the country's sharia law.
"Any executioner who wants to work in this field must know how to apply the theoretical knowledge. If he knows how to stand next to the person he is executing, how to concentrate on the blow, and how to land it, the rest is easy," he said in an interview.
"At work, if I let myself feel mercy or compassion for the person I am executing, he will not die at the first stroke. He will suffer. If the heart is compassionate, the hand fails. It can take two, three, four, or five strokes. God knows how many. He might not even die. If the heart is compassionate - that's it. The hand cannot function properly. Your hand betrays you.
"Once the mission is done, I feel relieved. I come home relaxed. I play with the children. We have fun. We have lunch. Sometimes we go out. Other times, we stay at home. Everything is normal. It has no effect on me."
Al-Bishi's son said that he would join him at an execution.
Hussein Urni is a district hangman, an Ashmawi, in Egypt.
"The first time it is a little difficult, the second time it gets a little easier, but from then on, it becomes run-of-the-mill," he said, in another interview transcipt from MEMRI.
"It's not different than a cameraman. That's his job, and he likes it. Like anyone who is trying to make a living, he goes to work, and prepares the chains and the ropes."
"My line of work as an executioner has no effect on my personal life. The proof is that people come up to me on the street... You'd have thought people would consider an executioner to be grumpy. A man's job is one thing, and his personal life is another. The first time children came to my kids at school ... Once, they saw my picture in a newspaper, and the kids wanted to be friends with my children, and were proud of them because their father was a celebrity."
What is MEMRI?
The institute states its mission is to "explore the Middle East and South Asia through their media," providing translations and analysis to "inform the debate over US policy in the Middle East."
It is independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit with a number of well-known names from government and media on its board of directors - among them former President George W. Bush's right-hand man Donald Rumsfeld and former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.
However critics say it is anti-Islam and pro-Israel, providing only selective insights into Middle Eastern culture that ignore the mainstream and skew Western views.
The UK's Muslim Public Affairs Committee argues the clips it provides from Arabic media are often "very loosely" translated and many are "themed around pro-violence and anti-semetic sentiments within fringe elements of Muslims."
MEMRI executive director Steve Salinsky rebuffed that criticism, noting the MPAC is an "extremist organization associated with Holocaust denial."
Discussing the al-Nabi video, he said "unfortunately, it's not a fake".
MEMRI staff monitor Middle Eastern TV for clips which it then posts with translations.
Mr Salinsky said it wasn't unusual for Middle Eastern TV to screen interviews with state-appointed executioners.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler
had a guillotine constructed and tested. He was impressed enough to
order 20 more constructed and pressed into immediate service.[5][unreliable source?] Nazi records indicate that between 1933 and 1945, 16,500 people were executed by guillotine in Germany and Austria.[5]
It was used for the last time in West Germany in 1949 (in the execution
of Richard Schuh) and in East Germany in 1966 (in the execution of Horst Fischer).[citation needed] In Switzerland it was used for the last time by the canton of Obwalden in the execution of murderer Hans Vollenweider in 1940.
Hans Vollenweider (11 February 1908 - 18 October 1940) was a Swiss criminal. He was the last person to be sentenced to death by a civil court in Switzerland and executed shortly after.
Vollenweider was born in Zurich. In 1936, he committed a bank robbery and was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. He remained incarcerated after his sentence was over, because he was considered dangerous. One day he was able to escape and after nine days he was captured on 23 June 1939. In these nine days, he had shot the driver Hermann Zwyssig, the postman Emil Stoll and the policeman Alois von Moos. After being held in several prisons in different cantons, the cantonal court of Obwalden sentenced him to death on 19 September 1940. Appeal and a request for clemency were rejected. In view of the fact that the death penalty in Switzerland was already scheduled to be abolished on 1 January 1942, the judgment was controversial.
One month later, on the morning of 18 October 1940, Hans Vollenweider was executed in Sarnen in the workshop of the prison with a guillotine borrowed from Lucerne. The offender refused last words and last meal as well as spiritual support.
The last public guillotining in France was of Eugen Weidmann, who was convicted of six murders. He was beheaded on 17 June 1939 outside the prison Saint-Pierre, rue Georges Clemenceau 5 at Versailles, which is now the Palais de Justice. A number of problems with that execution (inappropriate behavior by spectators, incorrect assembly of the apparatus, and the fact that it was secretly filmed) caused the authorities to conduct future executions in the prison courtyard.[citation needed]
The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.[2] The final guillotinings in France before abolition were those of child-murderer Christian Ranucci on July 28, 1976 and torture-murderer Hamida Djandoubi on September 10, 1977.
Hamida Djandoubi (Arabic: حميدة جندوبي) (c. 1949 – 10 September 1977) was the last person to be guillotined in France, at Baumettes Prison in Marseille.[1] He was a Tunisian immigrant who had been convicted of the torture and murder of 21-year-old Elisabeth Bousquet, his former girlfriend, in Marseille. Marcel Chevalier served as chief executioner.
Born in Tunisia around 1949, in 1968 Djandoubi started living in Marseille and working in a grocery store. He went on to work as a landscaper but had a workplace accident in 1971 that resulted in the loss of two thirds of his right leg.
In 1973, a 21-year-old woman named Elisabeth Bousquet, whom Djandoubi had met in the hospital while recovering from his amputation, filed a complaint against him, stating that he had tried to force her into prostitution.
After his arrest and eventual release from custody during the spring of 1973, Djandoubi drew two other young girls into his confidence and then forced them to "work" for him. In July 1974, he kidnapped Bousquet and took her into his home where, in full view of the terrified girls, he beat the woman before stubbing a lit cigarette all over her breasts and genital area. Bousquet survived the ordeal so Djandoubi took her by car to the outskirts of Marseille and strangled her there.
On his return Djandoubi warned the two girls to say nothing of what they had seen. Bousquet's body was discovered in a shed by a boy on 7 July 1974. One month later, Djandoubi kidnapped another girl who managed to escape and report him to police.
On 25 February he was condemned to death. An appeal against his sentence was rejected on 9 June, and in the early morning of 10 September 1977, Djandoubi was informed that he, like the child murderers Christian Ranucci (guillotined on 28 July 1976)
and Jérôme Carrein (guillotined on 23 June 1977), had not received a reprieve from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Shortly afterwards, at 4:40 a.m., he was executed by guillotine.
While Djandoubi was the last person executed in France, he was not the last condemned. But no more executions occurred after capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981 following the election of François Mitterrand.
Hans Vollenweider (11 February 1908 - 18 October 1940) was a Swiss criminal. He was the last person to be sentenced to death by a civil court in Switzerland and executed shortly after.
Vollenweider was born in Zurich. In 1936, he committed a bank robbery and was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. He remained incarcerated after his sentence was over, because he was considered dangerous. One day he was able to escape and after nine days he was captured on 23 June 1939. In these nine days, he had shot the driver Hermann Zwyssig, the postman Emil Stoll and the policeman Alois von Moos. After being held in several prisons in different cantons, the cantonal court of Obwalden sentenced him to death on 19 September 1940. Appeal and a request for clemency were rejected. In view of the fact that the death penalty in Switzerland was already scheduled to be abolished on 1 January 1942, the judgment was controversial.
One month later, on the morning of 18 October 1940, Hans Vollenweider was executed in Sarnen in the workshop of the prison with a guillotine borrowed from Lucerne. The offender refused last words and last meal as well as spiritual support.
The last public guillotining in France was of Eugen Weidmann, who was convicted of six murders. He was beheaded on 17 June 1939 outside the prison Saint-Pierre, rue Georges Clemenceau 5 at Versailles, which is now the Palais de Justice. A number of problems with that execution (inappropriate behavior by spectators, incorrect assembly of the apparatus, and the fact that it was secretly filmed) caused the authorities to conduct future executions in the prison courtyard.[citation needed]
The guillotine remained the official method of execution in France until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.[2] The final guillotinings in France before abolition were those of child-murderer Christian Ranucci on July 28, 1976 and torture-murderer Hamida Djandoubi on September 10, 1977.
Hamida Djandoubi (Arabic: حميدة جندوبي) (c. 1949 – 10 September 1977) was the last person to be guillotined in France, at Baumettes Prison in Marseille.[1] He was a Tunisian immigrant who had been convicted of the torture and murder of 21-year-old Elisabeth Bousquet, his former girlfriend, in Marseille. Marcel Chevalier served as chief executioner.
Born in Tunisia around 1949, in 1968 Djandoubi started living in Marseille and working in a grocery store. He went on to work as a landscaper but had a workplace accident in 1971 that resulted in the loss of two thirds of his right leg.
In 1973, a 21-year-old woman named Elisabeth Bousquet, whom Djandoubi had met in the hospital while recovering from his amputation, filed a complaint against him, stating that he had tried to force her into prostitution.
After his arrest and eventual release from custody during the spring of 1973, Djandoubi drew two other young girls into his confidence and then forced them to "work" for him. In July 1974, he kidnapped Bousquet and took her into his home where, in full view of the terrified girls, he beat the woman before stubbing a lit cigarette all over her breasts and genital area. Bousquet survived the ordeal so Djandoubi took her by car to the outskirts of Marseille and strangled her there.
On his return Djandoubi warned the two girls to say nothing of what they had seen. Bousquet's body was discovered in a shed by a boy on 7 July 1974. One month later, Djandoubi kidnapped another girl who managed to escape and report him to police.
Trial and execution
After a lengthy pre-trial process, Djandoubi eventually appeared in court in Aix-en-Provence on charges of torture-murder, rape and premeditated violence on 24 February 1977. His main defence revolved around the supposed effects of the amputation of his leg six years earlier which his lawyer claimed had driven him to a paroxysm of alcohol abuse and violence, turning him into a different man.On 25 February he was condemned to death. An appeal against his sentence was rejected on 9 June, and in the early morning of 10 September 1977, Djandoubi was informed that he, like the child murderers Christian Ranucci (guillotined on 28 July 1976)
Christian Ranucci.
and Jérôme Carrein (guillotined on 23 June 1977), had not received a reprieve from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Shortly afterwards, at 4:40 a.m., he was executed by guillotine.
While Djandoubi was the last person executed in France, he was not the last condemned. But no more executions occurred after capital punishment was abolished in France in 1981 following the election of François Mitterrand.
Hamida Djandoubi's life story is told in the book When the Guillotine Fell, written by Canadian author Jeremy Mercer.
Hamida Djandoub
On June 17, 1939, Weidmann was beheaded outside the prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles. The "hysterical behaviour" by spectators was so scandalous that French president Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. Unknown to authorities, film of the execution was shot from a private apartment adjacent to the prison. British actor Christopher Lee, who was 17 at the time, witnessed this event.
http://pulpcovers.com/2014/01/
No comments:
Post a Comment