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The strappado, also known as corda, is a form of torture in which the victim's hands are tied behind their back and the victim is suspended by a rope attached to the wrists, typically resulting in dislocated shoulders. Weights may be added to the body to intensify the effect and increase the pain. This kind of torture would generally not last more than an hour without rest, as it would otherwise likely result in death.

Other names for strappado include "reverse hanging", "Palestinian hanging" and il tormento della corda. It was employed by the medieval Inquisition and many governments, such as the civil law court (1543–1798) of the Order of St. John at the Castellania in Valletta, Malta.

The proper application of the strappado technique causes permanent but not visible damage. The levels of pain and resistance vary by victim depending on the victim's weight and any additional weights added to the body. It is not, as Samuel Johnson erroneously entered in A Dictionary of the English Language, a "chastisement by blows."

Variants

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There are three variants of this torture. In the first, victims have their arms tied behind their backs; a large rope is then tied to the wrists and passed over a pulley, beam or a hook on the roof. The torturer pulls on this rope until the victim is hanging from the arms. Since the hands are tied behind the victim's back, this will cause a very intense pain and possible dislocation of the arms. The full weight of the subject's body is then supported by the extended and internally rotated shoulder sockets. While the technique shows no external injuries, it can cause long-term nerve, ligament or tendon damage. The technique typically causes brachial plexus injury, leading to paralysis or loss of sensation in the arms. Prolonged suspension may eventually cause infarction of the muscles of the shoulder and chest wall and subsequent rhabdomyolysis, acute kidney injury, and eventual death.

The second variation, known as squassation, is similar to the first, but a series of drops are added, meaning that the victim is allowed to drop until his or her fall is suddenly checked by the rope. In addition to the damage caused by the suspension, the painful jerk would cause major stress to the extended and vulnerable arms, leading to broken shoulders. It is believed that this form of strappado was employed on Niccolò Machiavelli during his 1513 imprisonment after allegedly conspiring against the Medici family in Florence, who were also his primary patrons.

In the third variant, the victim's hands are tied to the front. The victim is also hung from the hands, but the ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This will cause pain and possible damage not only to the arms, but also to the legs and hips.

History

According to William Godwin, Girolamo Savonarola was tortured by strappado multiple times before being put to death in a trial by ordeal (fire). However, Savonarola apparently renounced his confessions after being tortured, and he was sentenced to be burned at the stake. This device was thought to be used during the Salem witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 to torture accused witches.

Modern instances

The "ropes" was one of several torture methods employed at the Hỏa Lò Prison, popularly known among Americans as the Hanoi Hilton during the 1964–1973 era of the Vietnam War. The site was used by the North Vietnamese Army to house, torture and interrogate captured servicemen, mostly American airmen shot down during bombing raids. The aim of the torture was usually not to acquire information, but to break the will of the prisoners, both individually and as a group, and to extract written or recorded statements from the prisoners that would be critical of American conduct of the war and praise their captors.

According to a 1997 Human Rights Watch report, this technique was "widely employed" by the security forces of Turkey, where it is "usually used together with high-pressure water, electric shock, beating, or sexual molestation such as squeezing the testicles or breast or placing a nightstick against or in the vagina or anus." In 1996, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of torture for its use of reverse hanging. Turkey has been admonished by Amnesty International and other international human rights groups concerning the use of the technique.

In 2003, one of the Bulgarian nurses interrogated during the HIV trial in Libya, Snezhana Dimitrova, stated that she had been tortured in this way.

They tied my hands behind my back. Then they hung me from a door. It feels like they are stretching you from all sides. My torso was twisted and my shoulders were dislocated from their joints from time to time. The pain cannot be described. The translator was shouting, "Confess or you will die here".

In November 2003, suspected terrorist Manadel al-Jamadi was tortured to death at Abu Ghraib prison during a Central Intelligence Agency interrogation by members of the U.S. military. It was revealed in February 2005 that al-Jamadi had died after 30 minutes of interrogation, during which he was suspended by the wrists bound behind his back.

Richard Belmar has stated that he was repeatedly subjected to this torture method as a punishment during his extrajudicial detention at the Parwan Detention Facility in Afghanistan from 2002–2005.

In 2017, video footage was released of Iraqi Army members inflicting strappado torture following successes in the Battle of Mosul.

In March 2023, the European Court of Human Rights found Ukraine in violation of the prohibition against torture, alleging that in November 2003 police made use of strappado to coerce prisoner Mykola Slyvotskyy into falsely confessing his guilt for two murders that another person had previously confessed to committing.

Strappado is sometimes used as a variant of the helicopter position for torture in Eritrea as of the early twenty-first century.

References

1. Smollett, Tobias (1900). The works of Tobias Smollett, Volume 11. Constable. p. 216. OCLC 646851669. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
2. ^ Cassar, Paul (1988). The Castellania Palace: From Law Courts to Guardian of the Nation's Health. Malta: Department of Information. pp. 31–32.
3. ^ Boffa, Christa (8 July 2016). "Palazz Castellania". Illum (in Maltese). Archived from the original on 30 July 2016.
4. ^ Borg-Muscat, David (2001). "Prison life in Malta in the 18th century – Valletta's Gran Prigione" (PDF). Storja: 48–49. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 April 2016.
5. Eton, William (1802). Authentic materials for a history of the principality of Malta. Oxford University. p. 170 (70).
6. ^ Pollanen, Michael S. (March 2018). "The pathology of torture". Forensic Science International. 284: 85–96. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2017.12.022. PMID 29367172.
7. ^ "'Palestinian hanging' torture revealed - After Saddam". SMH. 18 February 2005. Retrieved 20 July 2017. The prisoner died in a position known as 'Palestinian hanging,' documents reviewed by The AP showed.
8. Goldhaber, Michael (2007). A People's History of the European Court of Human Rights. Rutgers University Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-8135-3983-6. Mysteriously, this method is commonly called 'Palestinian hanging' today, although torture monitors say it is used by neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority.
9. Rejali, Darius (2007). Torture and Democracy. Princeton University Press. pp. 355. ISBN 978-0-691-11422-4.
10. The Inquisitor's Palace in Birgu (Vittoriosa).
11. Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study Authors A. L. Maycock, Ronald Knox Publisher Kessinger Publishing, 2003 ISBN 0-7661-7290-2,ISBN 978-0-7661-7290-6 p. 162
12. "The Castellania". Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Archived from the original on 12 March 2016.
13. Cassar-Pullicino, Joseph (1992). Studies in Maltese Folklore. Malta University Press. p. 50.
14. Torture and Democracy. p. 295-296.
15. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Jack Lynch (Ed.) Levenger Press. Delray Beach, FL. 2004. Pages 10 and 482.
16. Attard, Christian (2013). "The sad end of Maestro Gianni - A Neapolitan Buonavoglia and Sculptor". Treasures of Malta. XIX (56). Valletta: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti: 49. ISSN 1028-3013. OCLC 499647242.
17. Heraud, John Abraham (1843). The life and times of Girolamo Savonarola: illustrating the progress of the Reformation in Italy, during the fifteenth century. Whittaker. p. 371.
18. "The Prisoner", The New York Times.
19. Karnow, Stanley (1983). Vietnam: A History. The Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-74604-5. p. 655.
20. Hubbell, P.O.W., pp. 288–306.
21. TURKEY: TORTURE AND MISTREATMENT IN PRE-TRIAL DETENTION BY ANTI-TERROR POLICE - Techniques of Abuse
22. Aksoy v. Turkey Archived 8 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine, no. 100/1995/606/694, December 18, 1996, from the Human & Constitutional Rights Resource Page Archived 13 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
    European Commission on Human Rights, Aksoy v. Turkey Archived 2 August 2012 at archive.today, Publication 1996-VI, no. 26, December 18, 1996, from the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights Archived 2004-01-13 at the Library of Congress Web Archives
23. Rosenthal, Elisabeth (14 October 2005). "Time ebbing for 6 foreigners in Libya AIDS case". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 15 October 2005.
24. Rose, David (27 February 2005). "Beatings, sex abuse and torture: how MI5 left me to rot in US jail". The Observer. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
25. "Iraqi troops torture and execute civilians in secret videos". ABC News. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
26. Coynash, Halya (9 March 2023). "ECHR finds Ukraine in violation over life prisoner tortured into confessing to somebody else's crime". Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Retrieved 9 March 2023. In the case of Klimov and Slyvotskyy v. Ukraine, ECHR considered two applications involving allegations of ill-treatment by the police in order to extract false self-incriminating statements, and of ineffective investigation into their complaints. It found that Ukraine had violated Article 3 of the European Convention, namely the prohibition of torture, in both cases. The judgement explains that, according to Slyvotskyy, he was taken on 3 November 2003 to a forest, where several officers from the Voznesensk police 'subjected him to "Palestinian hanging", threatened to torture his relatives, punched and kicked him, and pressed pistols against his forehead in order to force him to confess to a murder.'
27. Eritrea: 'You have no right to ask' – Government resists scrutiny on human rights (PDF), Amnesty International, 18 May 2004, Wikidata Q126913055, archived (PDF) from the original on 21 February 2022

• Asian instruments of torture
• European instruments of torture
• Medieval instruments of torture
• Modern instruments of torture
• North American instruments of torture
• Torture