Category Archives: Hanged

1841: The Jewboy’s Gang

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On this date in 1841, Australian bushranger Edward “Teddy the Jewboy” Davis was hanged in Sydney along with five others of his gang. The reader may guess the chief’s distinguishing demographic characteristic, and some lists mark him the only Jewish bushranger.

He’d been transported from England in 1833 at the age of about 16, for a trifling theft. “Obsessed by the idea that he had been wronged when he was transported and governed by an indomitable desire for freedom,” Davis began repeatedly escaping from his penal assignments only to be repeatedly captured.

Indefatigable as Monty Python’s Swamp Castle King, he just kept trying until he got it right.

By 1839 the young Hebrew had formed a seven-strong outlaw gang plundering New South Wales’s future wine country, the Hunter Valley. Their captain seems to have brought along from the old country the romantic conception of a cavalier-thief, as this charming account of one of their raids suggests, wherein the victim “says he was treated in the most gentlemanly manner by them, and that he never spent a happier night in his life.” The stylish marauders, we find, dressed themselves “rather gaudy, as they wore broad-rimmed Manilla hats, turned up in front with abundance of broad pink ribbons, satin neck-cloths, splendid brooches, [and] all of them had rings and watches.”

They kept by a sage policy of Davis’s to eschew deadly violence for fear of bringing down the authorities’ wrath, but they didn’t quite keep to it well enough. One of their number, John Shea, slew a man in December 1840, and a posse hunted them down the very next day, and interviewed in jail, “Davies said that he would always oppose the shedding of blood, for he knew if they once committed a murder they would not reign a week; whilst saying so he looked at the other four men,* and said, you now see we have not reigned a day.”

Edward Davis, 26, Robert Chitty, 37, James Everett, 25, John Marshall, 27, Richard Glanville, 31, and the 27-year-old Shea were hanged behind Sydney Gaol on the 16th of the following March.

The notoriety which the crimes of these men has attained drew together a large concourse of spectators to witness their execution. The entrance to the Gaol, in George-street, was besieged for admission long before the arrival, at nine o’clock, of a strong military guard from the barracks, and so great was the pressure of the crowd, that it required the unremitting exertions of Captain Innes to preserve order. At ten minutes past nine, the culprits were strongly pinioned, and conducted from the cells to the area in front of the drop, where they knelt down. Chitty, Everett, Marshall, and Glanville, were attended by the Rev. William Cowper and the Rev. John Elder. The Rev. Mr. Murphy, Catholic Priest, accompanied Shea; and Davis (being of the Jewish persuasion), was attended by Mr. Isaacs, Minister of the Jewish congregation in New South Wales. All the culprits (if we except Everett), deeply lamented their having committed the crimes for which they were about to die, and acknowledged the justice of their sentences. Everett ascended the scaffold hurriedly, and in an evident state of excitement. He was followed by Chitty, Marshall, and Glanville, all three of whom, on reaching the scaffold sung the first verse of the Morning Hymn, to be found in many editions of the book of Common Prayer, commencing “Awake my soul, and with the sun.”

This act of devotion, we have since heard was entirely spontaneous, not having been suggested, or even expected by either of the reverend gentlemen, who attended to administer the consolations of religion according to the rites of the Protestant Church. The ropes were speedily adjusted, and the white caps drawn over the faces of the wretched criminals; in the short interval which elapsed before the withdrawal of the fatal bolt, Marshall and Glanville were engaged in loud and apparently fervent prayer, and we observed the culprit Davis (who was attired in a suit of mourning), thank the Jewish Minister for the attention paid him in his last moments. The struggles of all the men were of short duration; the immense crowd dispersed peaceably. It will be remembered that these men were apprehended, chiefly through the active exertions of Mr. Day, Police Magistrate, Maitland.

* A fifth accomplice was captured a short time afterwards and joined his mates on the gallows.

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1663: Alexander Kennedy, forger of false bonds and writts

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On this date in 1663, Alexander Kennedy was hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh for forging false bonds and writs, whose particulars we discover in The Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court, Edinburgh, 1661-1678.

Edinbr. 24 feb. 1663. Deput Cuningham pt.

Alexander Kennedy, sometimetime Porter in the Castle of Edr., now prisoner, dilated and accused for the crime following, viz. for that notwithstanding of the common, municipall Laws and constant practise of this kingdome, the forgers, Counterfeiters and Devisers up and Users of false Bonds, obligations and other Writts, are to be punished be tinsell of their lives and moveable estate and especially by the 22d Act, 23 Parl. Ja. 6, it is statute and ordained, that whosoever makes any false writ or is accessory to the making thereof shall be punished with the pains due to the Committers of falsehood, which by the constant practise of this kingdome is the pain of Tinsell of Life and moveable estate, and that it shall not be but that after Tryall of the Writt quarrelled it be found false the passing from or Declaration of the Party that he will not use the same shall no ways free him from the punishment due to the committers of falsehood as at more length is contained in the said Acts whereupon it is subsumed that the Pannell has forged, feinzied, counterfeited and made up the six Bonds, Obligations, and Contracts under written, four of the which Bonds are alledged granted by the decast John Renton of Lamberton, therein designed Constable of the Castle of Edinbr., to the deceast Dame Agnes Renton, Countess of Levin, all dated 17 Octor. 1648, by each of which four Bonds, the said umq John Renton granted him to have borrowed (here follows the contents of the Bonds as they are made payable to the Lady and her Daughter, then follows the tenor of a Contract made up by the Pannell betwixt himself and Lamberton, be which he is obliged to pay 3000£ to the Pannell upon his delivery of him of the forsaid six Bonds by the Lady Leven’s warrand, and Alexr. upon receipt of the forsaid sum is obliged to deliver tye Bonds and the Lady’s warrand, and subsumes that the Pannell is the forger of all these Writts, or airt and part, and that the Lo: of Session has found so by a Decreet of Improbation, dated 22 July last, and finds that the Pannell is an infamous and perjured person, and has remmitted him to be criminally tryed, and ordained the King’s Advocate to process him, which being found by an Assize, he ought to be punished with the Tinsell of Life and moveables, to the terror and example of others.

Mr. And. Birnie, Pror. for the Pannell, alledges the Dittay is not relevant, because it does not condescend wherein the Pannell is forger of the Writts lybelled, whether in the Subscription of the principall party, granter, or Subscriptions of the Witnesses, or date, or some other substantiall head. 2d. Nonrelevat accessory or user because by the Act of Parliat. the User of a false Writte unless he byde by it is not liable to the punishment of falsehood. Neither is Accession relevant unless the way of his accession be condescended upon, frae which Condescendance a Defence may result. 3d. The Lybell non relevat in so far as it concludes Tinsell of Life and Goods, because the Act of Parliamt. lybelled on does not express the Punishment, but referrs to prior Acts, and it is clear both from K. Jas. the 5th and Q. Mary‘s Acts that the Punishment is restricted to Imprisonment, Banishment, etc. which is placed in Arbitrio Judicis.

My Lo: Advocate to all this oppones the Dittay as it is lybelled, and the Act of Parlt. whereupon it is founded bearing the punishment of falsehood to be inflicted on such as are forgers and users of false Writts, or art and part thereof, and both the Act of Parliament and custom of the Justice Court has determined the pain to be loss of Life and Moveables.

Duplys Birnie to the last part of the Advocate’s Alledgiance, that it is to be understood only as to falsifying Writts that can proceed only from authority, and oppones the Act of Parliament.

The Justice Depute ordains the Dittay, notwithstanding of the Answer, to pass to the Tryall of an Assize. The Assize being sworn, the King’s Advocate produces the Lo: of Session’s Decreet of Improbation per modum probationis, and thereupon the Assize finds the Pannell guilty as art and part, accessory and user of the false Writts mentioned in the Dittay, conform to the Decreet of Session. Vide sentence 12th instant.

I repeat here my Observe which I made on Birnie’s sentence day of 1662. [I’m unsure what this alludes to -ed.]

…

Edinbr 12 March 1663. Deput Cuningham.

Alexr. Kennedy convict ut supra of falsehood, sentenced to be hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh.

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1817: John Cashman, Spa Fields rioter

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On this date in 1817, a sailor named Cashman was hanged for the Spa Fields riots.

In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s economy had all but ceased to function for her lowest orders, burdened by spiraling food prices and cratering wages. An ample stock of radical agitators put the powdered wig set in mind of so many Robespierres, and here and there they were sacrificed on the scaffold.

Three years on, in the wake of a different protest against these unresolved crisis that was crushed with the same violence, Shelley would put the spirit of swelling desperation into verse in his “Masque of Anarchy”

Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.

What is Freedom? — ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well —
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

‘Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

‘Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,–
They are dying whilst I speak.

‘Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

‘Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e’er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

In November of 1816, activists convened a 10,000-strong meeting/rally at Spa Fields, Islington, demanding political reforms including universal male suffrage, the secret ballot, and annual general elections. After a petition to this same effect had been repeatedly rebuffed by the corpulent Prince Regent, a follow-up meeting on December 2 doubled the crowd, and doubled its anger. Balked of even so much as a hearing for their petition, the crowd rioted — incited in one instance by a demagogue thundering,

A man who receives one million a year public money gives only 5,000l. to the poor. They have neglected the starving people, robbed them of every thing, and given them a penny. Is this to be endured? Four millions are in distress; our brothers in Ireland are in a worse state, the climax of misery is complete, it can go no further. The Ministers have not granted our rights. Shall we take them? (Yes, yes, from the mob.) Will you demand them? (Yes, yes.) If I jump down, will you follow me? (Yes, yes, was again vociferated. It shall go no further.) (London Times, Dec. 3, 1816)

In a trice the crowd sacked the nearby establishment of a gunsmith called Beckwith for armaments, and a gentleman in the shop was shot in the fracas which is a painful place to be shot. He survived, but it’s for this attack that our principal will find his way to the gallows: the riot itself was restrained after some hours.

The tumult made witnesses uncertain to the detriment of the law but although four comrades were acquitted beside him, John Cashman was condemned thanks to a firm identification by the gunsmith’s apprentice. Cashman denied it in words calculated to stir the ire that had launched Spa Fields.

My Lord, —

I hope you will excuse a poor friendless sailor for occupying your time. Had I died fighting the battles of my country, I should have gloried in it, but I confess that it grieves me to think of suffering like a robber, when I can call God to witness that I have passed days together without even a morsel of bread, rather than violate the laws.

I have served my King for many years; and often fought for my country. I have received nine wounds in the service, and never before have been charged with any offence. I have been at sea all my life, and my father was killed on board the Diana frigate. I came to London, my Lord, to endeavour to recover my pay and prize money, but being unsuccessful, I was reduced to the greatest distress; and being poor and pennyless, I have not been able to bring forward witnesses to prove my innocence, nor even to acquaint my brave officers, for I am sure they would all have come forward in my behalf.

The Gentlemen who have sworn against me must have mistook me for some other person (there being many sailors in the mob): but I freely forgive them, and I hope God will also forgive them, for I solemnly declare that I committed no act of violence whatever. (Morning Chronicle, January 31, 1817)

Cashman’s spirits were less exalted come execution day, when the man was hauled in a cart to a gallows situated opposite the gunsmith’s outraged shop — in the presence of a vast and testy mob. Authorities feared a rescue attempt or an attack upon the execution team, a replay of the Porteous riot that had many years before lay Edinburgh in flames on the occasion of a provocative public hanging. If ever there was a man they hoped would do the submissive penitential act, it was this bluff sailor. Instead, Cashman bantered with onlookers, cheeky and fearless, stirring the pot.

The Rev. Mr. Cotton and Mr. Devereux now ascended the platform, and endeavored to bring the wretched man to a sense of his awful situation. Their benevolent exertions, however, were fruitless, he appeared callous to all religious exhortations, and pushing them aside, exclaimed, “Don’t bother me — it’s no use — I want no mercy but from God!”

The executioner then came forward, and put the rope round his neck. This operation excited new tumults, and fresh exclamations of disapprobation burst from the crowd. On the night cap being put over his face, he said, “For God’s sake let me see to the last; I want no cap.” In this he was indulged, and the cap was withdrawn. He now turned towards Mr. Beckwith’s house in an angry manner, and shaking his head, said, “I’ll be with you there” — meaning that he would haunt the house after his death. Again turning to the people, he cried “I am the last of seven of them that fought for my King and country: I could not get my own, and that has brought me here.” The executioner having quitted the platform, the unfortunate wretch addressed the crowd nearest him, and exclaimed: “Now you —— [bastards?] give me three cheers when I trip.” — “Hurra you ——.” And then, calling to the executioner, he cried out, “come, Jack, you ——, let go the jib-boom.” The few remaining seconds of his existence he employed in similar addresses, and was cheering at the instant the fatal board fell beneath his feet. The cap was then drawn over his face, and he died almost without a struggle. A dead silence instantly prevailed, which continued for a few moments.

The Sheriffs during the execution took their station in the window of a home opposite Mr. Beckwith’s shop.

After the lapse of about ten minutes the populace renewed the expressions of disgust and indignation towards every person who had taken a part in the dreadful exhibition. Cries of “Murder! Murder!” were distinctly heard from the innumeraboe mouths, followed by crimes of “Shame! Shame!” “Where are the conspirators? Why not hang them?” &c. Groans and hisses accompanied these allusions. (New York (USA) National Advocate, April 25, 1817, reprinting the Commercial Advertiser

In the end, the potential violent recrudescence did not come to pass and the angry onlookers dispersed to carry their foul tempers and unsatisfied grievances back to the workingmen’s haunts. Parliament paid the Spa Fields petitioners one last rude tribute by enacting just days later a Seditious Meetings Act barring any unauthorized assemblies “for the purpose … of deliberating upon any grievance, in church or state.”

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1931: Alfred Arthur Rouse, Blazing Car Murderer

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On this date in 1931, Alfred Arthur Rouse hanged at Bedford Gaol for the murder of … someone.

A traveling salesman, Rouse tomcatted around old Albion leaving several illegitimate children and at least three bigamous marriages in his wake.

The weight of these strata of deceptions (and financial obligations) eventually drove Rouse to start thinking about how he could “start afresh” (his words) and darned if he wasn’t undone by the added decency of wanting to be sure that his legal wife and son would be looked-after once he walked out on them. And they say romance is dead.

The answer to his dilemma was a life insurance policy plus “a down-and-out” case that Rouse met at a pub who tellingly remarked over pints that “nobody in the world cares whether I live of die.”

Dangling the prospect of a job, Rouse convinced this man to accompany him to the Midlands on Guy Fawkes night of 1930 — a night when “a fire would not be noticed so much.” Before the night was over, Rouse’s Morris Minor made just such a fire, with a charred corpse of Rouse’s age and build behind the wheel.

The Headsman is fully prepared to believe that the Edmond Dantes-like corpse switcheroo has been executed by a few clever folk in history. Rouse, however, seems not to have thought through the endgame for he returned home — just briefly, but long enough for his wife to get a cockamamie story from him about his car being stolen — and then proceeded to Walea and the arms of one of those mistresses on whom he was allegedly trying to get a fresh start. Suspicious of him because he scrammed when she showed him the newspaper article reporting his possible roadside murder, she rang the police.*

Rouse’s claims that he’d picked up a hitchhiker who accidentally set himself ablaze in the car while refilling the gas tank while Rouse took a piss didn’t get much traction in view of the obvious motive presented by Rouse’s misbehavior. (And the fact that he’d previously told his wife and mistress the different story about his car being stolen.) Furthermore, crown forensic witnesses were able to show that whoever burned to death in that car was alive but unconscious when the fire killed him — perhaps incapacitated by a blow from a wooden mallet also found in the Morris Minor.

Rouse professed innocence of murder deep into his appeals but as hope disappeared he wrote a confessional to the Daily Sketch from which the quotes herein have been derived.

In it, he said that he never asked his passenger’s name. It’s a name that has not been established in the intervening decades, and not for want of trying; there have been several DNA misses on leads brought by families of men who disappeared in 1930. We may one day discover it; for now, the mysterious last word belongs to the Times of March 21, 1931.

At dawn yesterday the funeral of the unknown man murdered by Alfred Arthur Rouse in his motor-car took place in secret at Hardingstone parish church.

On Thursday night the remains of the body were removed from Northampton Hospital to the mortuary. Early yesterday morning the coffin was placed in a police tender and taken to Hardingstone.

The vicar officiated at a brief service. Six police officers carried the coffin to the grave by the side of the path behind the church. The plate on the coffin bore the inscription, “Man unknown. Died November 6, 1930.” A wreath was placed on the coffin by Superintendent Brumby, and was inscribed: “With deepest sympathy from the officers and constables of the Northampton and Daventry Division.”

* Rouse would claim that he intended to disappear to some new life but, having been observed by passersby down the road from the blazing car, he feared that he would not after all be taken for the victim.

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1957: Larbi Ben M’Hidi, in the Battle of Algiers

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On this date in 1957, Algerian revolutionary Larbi Ben M’Hidi — more familiarly referred to as Si Larbi or Ben M’Hidi — was extrajudicially executed in French custody.

He was one of the founders of the militant nationalist National Liberation Front (FLN) and was a critical commander in the guerrilla war against French occupation, the Battle of Algiers. Small wonder he also features prominently in the cinematic masterpiece of the same name, where he and his opposite number, the French Col. Mathieu, are bracingly clear-eyed as to their respective sides’ necessary forms of terror.

In this scene,* for instance, the captured Ben M’Hidi is asked by a journalist whether it is not cowardly to have women kill people with bombs hidden in their baskets.

“Isn’t it even more cowardly to attack defenseless villages with napalm bombs that kill many thousands of times more?” the shackled M’Hidi replies. “Obviously, planes would make things easier for us. Give us your bombers, sir, and you can have our baskets.”

This exchange adapts a conversation that “Col. Mathieu’s” real-life model, Marcel Bigeard, reportedly had with his prisoner over dinner.

Bigeard respected Ben M’Hidi too much to torture him but the French brass was not so sanguine — perceiving that the Algerian would present a great danger to the occupation as a political prisoner. This was a dirty war, and men like Ben M’Hidi met dirty fates.

Major Paul Aussaresses,** the officer eventually tasked with dispatching the revolutionary, described how it happened in his The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Algeria 1955-1957.

Ben M’Hidi didn’t want to cooperate and Bigeard knew full well what the consequences of such a refusal would be … would he have talked under torture? We knew that Ben M’Hidi was responsible for most of the attacks and that he deserved the gallows ten times over, yet it wasn’t absolutely certain that he would be found guilty in court.

On March 3, 1957, [General Jacques] Massu and I discussed the problem in the presence of [Massu’s second-in-command Roger] Trinquier. We agreed that a trial of Ben M’Hidi was not a good idea. There would have been international repercussions …

“So what do you think?” asked Massu.

“I don’t know why Ben M’Hidi should get preferential treatment compared to the other rebels. When it comes down to terrorism the leaders don’t impress me any more favorably than their underlings. We’ve already executed many poor devils who were carrying out this guy’s orders and here we are hesitating for three weeks just to find out what we’re going to do about him!”

“I agree with you completely, but Ben M’Hidi is not just some cipher who will be quickly forgotten. We can’t just make him simply disappear into thin air.”

“There’s no way we can hand him over to the police either. They claim they’ll give him the third degree to make him talk but I’m convinced he won’t say a word. If there were to be a trial and he hasn’t confessed, he could actually walk away free, along with the entire FLN cadre. So let me take care of him before he becomes a fugitive, which is bound to happen if we keep on hesitating.”

“Very well, go ahead and take care of him,” answered Massu with a sigh. “Do the best you can. I’ll cover you.”

I understood that Massu already had the government’s approval to proceed.

I picked up Ben M’Hidi the following night at El-Biar. Bigeard made sure he was somewhere else because he had been told ahead of time that I was coming to take the prisoner away. I came with a few Jeeps and a Dodge pick-up. There were about a dozen men from my first squad, all of them armed to the teeth. Captain Allaire was in charge and had a little combat group lined up and presenting arms. I asked him to go get Ben M’Hidi and hand him over to me.

“Present arms!” ordered Allaire, when Ben M’Hidi, who had just been awakened, was escorted out of the building.

To my amazement the paratroopers of the 3rd RPC gave the defeated FLN leader his final honors. It was Bigeard in effect paying his respects to a man who had become his friend. This spectacular and somewhat useless demonstration didn’t make my job any easier. Obviously at that instant Ben M’Hidi fully understood what was in store for him. I quickly shoved him into the Dodge. We traveled very fast since an ambush to free him was always a possibility. I gave very strict orders to the NCO guard sitting next to the FLN leader:

“If we’re ambushed, you shoot him immediately, even if we come out unharmed. Make sure you knock him off without hesitating!”

We stopped at an isolated farm that was occupied by the commando unit belonging to my regiment and located about twenty kilometers south of Algiers, on the left off the main road. A pied-noir had placed the farm at our disposal. It was a modest building and the living quarters were on the ground floor. My second team was waiting for us there.

The commando unit of the 1st RCP included about twenty men, some of whom were draftees, but all of them were completely reliable. Captain Allard, nicknamed Tatave, who was very much devoted to me, was in charge. I had told him what was going on and he had been briefed. I told him to have his men set up in a corner of the room where Ben M’Hidi would be placed. The farm was messy and they had to move a few bales of hay around and sweep the floor. While this was taking place the prisoner was kept isolated in another room, which had been prepared. One of my men was standing guard at the door.

Then I entered with one of the soldiers and together we grabbed Ben M’Hidi and hanged him by the neck to make it look like suicide. Once I was sure he was dead, I immediately had him taken down and brought the body to the hospital. Following my orders, the NCO who was driving left the engine running while the car was parked, in order to be able to drive off at top speed without volunteering any explanations as soon as the emergency room doctor appeared. It was about midnight.

I immediately phoned Massu.

“General, Ben M’Hidi has just committed suicide. His body is at the hospital. I will bring you my report tomorrow.”

Massu grunted and hung up the phone. He knew full well that my report had been ready since early afternoon, just to make sure. Judge [Jean] Berard was the first one to read it. It described in detail the suicide that was to take place the next night. Berard was impressed:

“Well, this is very good! You know, it does make sense!”

Actually the report didn’t make sense for very long. Massu called me to his office a few days later.

“Aussaresses, I’m in the shit. District Attorney [Jean] Reliquet [a torture foe -ed.] has called me in.”

“What? He dared summon you!”

“Yes, to discuss the suicide of Ben M’Hidi.”

“But that’s an outrageous thing to do! Because of your position you shouldn’t have to answer the summons. I’ll go, since I’m your representative to the legal authorities.”

I therefore paid a visit to the judge’s office.

“Mr. District Attorney, I am here to represent General Massu. Because of my position I can discuss the circumstances of Ben M’Hidi’s death. I’m also the author fo the report that you’ve seen.”

The district attorney was absolutely enraged.

“Yes, of course! Let’s discuss your report! What you state in it is purely circumstantial. And only circumstantial! There’s no proof. Can you military types offer any proof at all?”

“I can offer our good faith.”

I think that had I slapped Reliquet across the face it would have had less of an impact than that answer.

“Your good faith!” he answered, choking on the words. “Your good faith as soldiers. Soldiers who are suddenly being candid?”

I put my beret back on, saluted him, clicking my heels, and walked out of the room.

We never heard from the district attorney again after that. The death of Ben M’Hidi was a decisive blow to the FLN in Algiers. The attacks died down and the bulk of the rebels began retreating toward the Atlas Mountains near Blida.

We used the farmhouse again where Ben M’Hidi had been executed. I had the men dig a long ditch and some twenty bodies, including that of a woman, were buried there.

The French military’s success by 1957 in the Battle of Algiers did not clinch its fight to retain Algeria — which attained its independence in 1962, to the horror of the far right. But it did put the army in such a vaunting position vis-a-vis the civilian authorities — one can see it in Aussaresses’s disdainful treatment of Reliquet — that the generals would author a 1958 coup led by Gen. Massu himself which called Charles de Gaulle out of retirement and initiated France’s Fifth (and current) Republic.

Larbi Ben M’Hidi’s name today graces one of the main thoroughfares of Algiers.

* The full film is a must-watch and can often be searched up in the usual places. This press interrogation occurs about 88 minutes in … closely followed by a scene of a spokeman announcing that M’Hidi “hanged himself” and Col. Mathieu allowing that he “appreciated the moral fiber, courage and commitment of Ben M’Hidi to his own ideals. Notwithstanding the great danger he represented, I pay tribute to his memory.” Game recognizes game.

** Eventually, General Paul Aussaresses … although he’d be stripped of this rank (and of his Legion of Honor) for celebrating the use of torture in Algeria in The Battle of the Casbah.

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1882: Dead Shot, Dandy Jim and Skippy, mutinous Apache scouts

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On this date in 1882,* the U.S. Army hanged three White Mountain Apache scouts as mutineers.

This small tragedy in the long-running Apache Wars of the American Southwest had its seeds in the 1870s, when the Army forced onto the San Carlos reservation several bands of Apache peoples, including the Chiricahua, Yavapai, and the Western Apache nations of Tonto, White Mountain, and Cibecue.

The concentration proved potent, unexpectedly so since the tribes in question were not all on friendly terms with one another.

Noch-ay-del-klinne (many other transliterations are possible), an influential White Mountain medicine man of 36 summers or so — and a man who had been to Washington DC with a peace delegation and laid his own eyes on the encroaching industrial civilization — began cultivating something very like a ghost dance for the San Carlos Indians.

Though the ghost dance is most closely associated with the Lakota Sioux, several years and several hundred kilometers’ distance from the Apache of Arizona, the movement actually originated among the much nearer Nevada Paiute. Incarnations of ghost dancing throughout the American West gave a millenial expression to indigenes’ shared trauma of defeat, displacement, and death.

Noch-ay-del-klinne’s rituals were called Na’Ilde’, meaning raising from the dead,** and his prophesy that lost comrades would rise from their graves and the white man would vanish from Apache lands when the corn was ripe, spoke to that trauma for the denizens of the San Carlos reservation — and alarmed the U.S. Army troops stationed at nearby Fort Apache. Especially troubling was the “fraternizing that went on between tribes and elements of tribes which had always held for each other the most deadly aversion,” in the words of the later memoir of Thomas Cruse, who commanded the army’s company of native Apache scouts. He had granted leave for some of his scouts to attend these dances and didn’t like what he saw when they returned.

After the medicine dances began around the post I noticed a change. Generally they [the scouts] are very ready to communicate anything they know or may have seen, but after these dances they became very uncommunicative and would not tell anything that was going on among the other Indians or among themselves … when they came back they were not only exhausted and unfit for duty, but they showed surliness and insubordination. They grumbled constantly and made vague remarks about the country being theirs, not ours. Dozens of small incidents showed that something, or someone, was giving them new thoughts.

Cruse gave a grim — and as events soon proved, sound — assessment of his men’s unreliability: “he entirely distrusted his scouts in event of the rising of the White Mountains and believed all or nearly all would go with the enemy.” But the affirmative reply to Cruse’s plea to discharge the unit was delayed due to telegraph problems by the time that unit set out with Col. Eugene Asa Carr on an August 1881 mission to arrest Noch-ay-del-klinne.†

This incursion, which will set in motion dozens of untimely deaths, was entirely aggressive, justified by no act of overt hostility by the Apache. Although Cruse was writing many years after the fact, his complaints about his subalterns’ “surliness” and “new thoughts” have the ring of the boss’s know-your-placeism, as directed in this same period at social insubordination elsewhere in the American experiment — at organized labor, for example; or at Black men and women.

The army found the medicine man and took him into custody on August 30. That evening, as the troop bivouaced down for the night, Apaches began gathering ominously beyond their fringes. They were visibly armed, and unhappy about the unprovoked seizure of Noch-ay-del-klinne; according to an oral history relayed by Tom Friday, the orphaned son of one of the men destined for the gallows in this post, “All Cibecue Indian people know that the soldiers were coming. They were ready for them. They were ready to fight. They sent word to all Indians, ‘Come, clean your guns; get ready.’ … The Indians were very angry: they had done no wrong and could not understand why the soldiers would come.”‡

Whether upon an arranged signal or merely the alert of the sort of random confrontation this situation invited, those Apaches started firing at the army camp — and as Cruse had anticipated, his scouts in the breach adhered to their people, not the flag.

The Battle of Cibecue Creek could easily have wiped out the expedition, for as one of their number named William Carter later wrote, there were at the outset of “more than 100 Indians besides the scouts in camp, and less than forty dismounted men engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict.”

In averting catastrophe, Carr was one of four U.S. soldiers to earn the Medal of Honor for gallantry in the battle, repulsing the hostiles from the camp and scrambling his surprised men to hold off any further attacks until night dispelled the combatants. He also had Noch-ay-del-klinne summarily shot during the fight. Carter again:

Before leaving the field Colonel Carr sent Lieutenant Carter to examine the body of the Medicine Man and determine if life was extinct. Strange to say, notwithstanding his wounds [he’d been shot in the head -ed.], he was still alive. The recovery of this Indian, if left in the hands of his friends, would have given him a commanding influence over these superstitious people, which would have resulted in endless war. Colonel Carr then repeated the order for his death, specifying that no more shots should be fired. Guide Burns was directed to carry out the order with the understanding that a knife was to be used. Burns, fearing failure, took an ax and crushed the forehead of the deluded fanatic, and from this time forward every person murdered by these Apaches was treated in a similar manner.

Carr’s bloodied expedition proceeded that night upon a forced march for the safety of Fort Apache, reaching it the following afternoon — although “many of the Indians had preceded the command, and all night they were haranguing in the vicinity. They covered the roads and trails, and killed a number of citizens.” The fort came under a brief siege in the ensuing days, and hostilities in the resulting regional uprising dragged on for two years, concluding with the outcome customary for the Apache Wars.

Four of the absconded scouts were arrested in the months ahead and tried at court-martial. (Other captured Apache who were not enlisted in the army were not prosecuted for the firefight.) A Private Mucheco was sentenced to hard labor at Alcatraz. The other three, sergeants jauntily known to the whites as Dead Shot, Dandy Jim, and Skippy,

On the appointed day, per a detailed report in the New York Herald (March 4, 1882),

Wagons of all descriptions loaded with men anxious to see the execution of the Indian scouts, Dead Shot, Dandy Jim and Skippy, came pouring into this place from Wilcox, Thomas, Safford and all points from very early this morning. The time not being known at which the event would take place, there was a state of suspense until the moment arrived for the execution. The gallows was erected in front of the guard house and was fourteen feet high, with a platform six feet four inches from the ground and a distance of seven feet four inches from the floor to the gallows pole. The whole measured twelve feet in length by eight feet wide. The rope used was three-quarters of an inch thick and the drop was four feet six inches.

Dandy Jim, from this forum thread.

[On the scaffold] Dead Shot said he had nothing to say. What was being done was correct. He would probably meet his people. He had suffered much in this world and now he was through and would see his people. Since he first saw white men he had been well treated. He had plenty to eat and plenty of clothes, but this day paid for all he got from the white men. He also said Dandy Jim was a nephew and Eskiticha, or “Skippy,” a cousin of his. He had seen a good many of his people die and did not know where they went, but he was going to follow. He thought there was no use in dressing an Indian up as he was and then hanging him. When he came into San Carlos, if he had done anything wrong, he would not have given himself up, yet he gave up his rifle and the twenty rounds of ammunition that were furnished him at Camp Apache.

Dandy Jim said he had to be hanged, as such were the orders. He could not talk much. It was no use to beg for his life, as people would only laugh at him for his trouble. Eskiticha said: — “The sun is going down, and God is looking after me.” He did not think they were doing right, as he had never done anything to warrant being hanged.

The chaplain, Rev. A.D. Mitchell, then repeated a short prayer, which was interpreted by Merijilda, when all retired from the scaffold, except the hangman, a military prisoner. The black caps were then placed over the heads of the men, and at one o’clock the drop fell. Death was instantaneous in the case of Dead Shot and Eskiticha; Dandy Jim quivered once or twice. After being allowed to hang about twenty minutes they were cut down and pronounced dead by the doctors.

* The same date as an unrelated Mississippi double hanging, previously covered in these pages.

** According to John R. Welch, Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Mark Altaha in “Retracing the Battle of Cibecue: Western Apache, Documentary, and Archaeological Interpretations,” Kiva, Winter 2005. Noch-ay-del-klinne had some exposure to Christian doctrine, which seems present in his own movement’s interest in resurrection.

† Also in the scouting party for this mission was famed frontiersman and eventual Executed Today client Tom Horn.

‡ Thomas Friday’s full account of this affair — which is a second-hand version, since Friday himself was a small child at this time — comes courtesy of William B. Kessel in “The Battle of Cibecue and Its Aftermath: A White Mountain Apache’s Account,” Ethnohistory, Spring 1974.

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1888: Oscar Beckwith, the Austerlitz Murderer

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On this date in 1888, the “Austerlitz Murderer” — not a Napoleonic figure but an irascible septuagenarian woodsman — hanged in New York.

Oscar Beckwith’s crime, explains the New York Herald of Jan. 18, anticipating the sixth issuance of his sentence for this crime,

was the killing of Simon A. Vandercook at Austerlitz, Columbia county, in January, 1882. Both men were wood-choppers and quarrelled over a supposed gold mine near the town. The victim’s body was found in Beckwith’s hut, portions of it having been burned.* Beckwith fled to Canada and eluded capture until February, 1885. He was extradited, and while in custody admitted the killing, but claimed that it was done in self-defence.

That same paper four days afterwards informs us that he favored the court on this occasion with an “excited tirade” blaming the affair on “Freemason devils” as he was hauled back to his cell, where “he kept up a running invective against everybody who had any connection with his case.”

* More specifically, after suspicions were aroused by the awful smell belched by Beckwith’s stovepipe, the body was found hacked up and stashed under Beckwith’s bed, save that “the head, one hand and a foot were gone. The teeth were found in the ashes of the stove.” (Troy Weekly Times, March 1, 1888) This grisly pile spurred (likely baseless) rumors of cannibalism; he’s also sometimes tagged the “Austerlitz Cannibal”.

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1525: Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor

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Although the primary accounts — those by conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and historian Francisco Lopez de Gomara* — did not explicitly record the date, February 28 is the traditionally recognized anniversary of the execution of the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc.

A monument to Cuauhtemoc in Mexico City. (Author’s photo; public domain)

Cuauhtemoc (English Wikipedia entry | Spanish) was enthroned early in 1521, in a Tenochtitlan already in the train of devastation brought by the Spanish, which had over the preceding months laid low the Emperor Moctezuma II (by violence) and his brother Cuitlahuac (by smallpox, a disease that halved the city’s population within a year).

He was about 23 or 24 years old, a nobleman who must have distinguished himself in war — “a handsome man, both as regards his countenance and his figure,” in Bernal Diaz’s estimation; “a valiant man and a good warrior” by Gomara’s account.

And it would fall to him to bear his proud kingdom’s ruin.

Having previously been welcomed to Tenochtitlan as guests, Cortes and the Spanish had fought their way out and now returned as besiegers, joined by most of the Aztecs’ resentful former subject kingdoms. They soon had Tenochtitlan in a stranglehold, undaunted by the frightening sacrifice of captured prisoners.

all in a moment the large drum of Huitzilopochtli again resounded from the summit of the temple, accompanied by all the hellish music of shell trumpets, horns, and other instruments. The sound was truly dismal and terrifying, but still more agonizing was all this to us when we looked up and beheld how the Mexicans were mercilessly sacrificing to their idols our unfortunate companions, who had been captured in Cortes’ flight across the opening.

We could plainly see the platform, with the chapel in which those cursed idols stood; how the Mexicans had adorned the heads of the Spaniards with feathers, and compelled their victims to dance round the god Huitzilopochtli; we saw how they stretched them out at full length on a large stone, ripped open their breasts with flint knives, tore out the palpitating heart, and offered it to their idols. Alas! we were forced to be spectators of all this, and how they then seized hold of the dead bodies by the legs and threw them headlong down the steps of the temple, at the bottom of which other executioners stood ready to receive them, who severed the arms, legs, and heads from the bodies, drew the skin off the faces, which were tanned with the beards still adhering to them, and produced as spectacles of mockery and derision at their feasts ; the legs, arms, and other parts of the body being cut up and devoured!

In this way the Mexicans served all the Spaniards they took prisoners; and the entrails alone were thrown to the tigers, lions, otters, and serpents, which were kept in cages. These abominable barbarities we were forced to witness with our own eyes from our very camp; and the reader may easily imagine our feelings, how excessively agonizing! the more so as we were so near our unfortunate companions without being able to assist them. Every one of us thanked God from the bottom of his soul for His great mercy in having rescued us from such a horrible death!

–Bernal Diaz

Wracked by famine after Cortes successfully cut off its food and water, Tenochtitlan succumbed that August. (The conquistadors found they could barely endure the stench of countless rotting bodies as they took control of the famished city.) When captured, Cuauhtemoc implored Cortes through tears (again according to Bernal Diaz),

I have done what I was bound to do in the defence of my metropolis, and of my subjects. My resources have now become entirely exhausted. I have succumbed to superior power, and stand a prisoner before you. Now draw the dagger which hangs at your belt, and plunge it into my bosom.

There would be no bosom-daggering. Cortes had a much worse fate in mind.

He saluted Cuauhtemoc for his intrepidity in defense, vowing to maintain the latter as the ruler of Mexico … Cortes’s ruler, to ratify the dictates of the conquerors, beginning with commanding his remaining loyalists to surrender. Cuauhtemoc obeyed, with what posterity can only guess must have been fathomless shame and sorrow.

Upon humiliation, Cortes heaped physical torture when the invaders’ ransack of their captured city turned up far less lesser quantities of material loot than they had anticipated — torture which Cuauhtemoc and a cousin-king of a loyal Aztec ally both endured heroically without augmenting the Spanish bottom line. Bernal Diaz once again:

The next thing which Cortes did was to collect all the gold, silver, and jewels that had been found in Mexico, of which, however, there was very little; for Quauhtemoctzin, it was said, had ordered all the treasures to be thrown into the lake four days previous to his capture. A great quantity had likewise been purloined by the Tlascallans, Tezcucans, Huexotzincans, Cholullans, and other auxiliary troops which had assisted us in the siege, besides what had fallen into the hands of the troops on board the brigantines.

The crown officials were positive that Quauhtemoctzin had concealed the greater part, and asserted that Cortes was very pleased that the monarch refused to say a word where it was hidden; for he would then be able to get the whole treasure into his own possession.

The officers then proposed that Quauhtemoctzin and the king of Tlacupa, his most intimate friend and cousin, should be put to the torture, in order to extort from them a confession as to what had become of the treasures: but Cortes could not make up his mind to insult so great a monarch as Quauhtemoctzin, whose territory more than trebled that of Spain, and that for mere lust after gold. Moreover, the monarch’s household assured us they had given up all the gold they possessed to the officers of the crown, which, it was well known, amounted to 380,000 pesos, the whole of which had been melted into bars; and one thing is certain, that the emperor’s and Cortes’ fifths were deducted from that sum; but the conquistadores were not at all satisfied, and considered this sum much below the real amount, and several expressed their suspicion to Alderete, the royal treasurer, that Cortes’ only reason for not wishing to put the monarch to the torture was, that he might secretly take possession of all his riches. Cortes, not willing that such a suspicion should any longer he upon him, or that he should afterwards be called to an account on this score, at last consented that both should be put to the torture.


Detail view (click for the full image) of David Alfaro Siquieros‘s monumental 1950-51 mural, The Torment of Cuauhtemoc.

Boiling hot oil was then applied to their feet; upon which they confessed that, four days prior to Quauhtemoctzin’s capture, all the gold, with the cannon, crossbows, and muskets, which we had lost in the night of sorrows, when we retreated from Mexico, besides those which had been taken in Cortes’ last defeat on the causeway, had been thrown into the lake. A number of good swimmers were then sent to dive for the treasure in the spot they pointed out, but nothing was found. Yet there was some truth in the statement; for I was myself present when Quauhtemoctzin led us to a large and deep reservoir of water, built of stone, which lay near his palace. From this reservoir we fished up a sun of gold similar to the one sent us by Motecusuma, besides many jewels and other trinkets, though all of little value. The king of Tlacupa also informed us that he had hidden all manner of valuable things in some large houses, about twelve miles from Tlacupa, and he would accompany us there to point out the spot where he had buried them.

Alvarado was then despatched thither with six soldiers, among which number I also was; but when we arrived at the spot, this king assured us he had merely invented all this in the hopes that we would have killed him in a moment of anger at our disappointment.

(Diaz later added that “the suspicion was become pretty general that he [Cortes] had concealed the greater part of Quauhtemoctzin’s treasure,” and indeed some disgruntled companions — unsatisfied with the share they had been allotted for so magnificent a conquest — would come to lodge this charge against Cortes formally with Emperor Charles V.)

Cortes eventually brought both these hostages/puppet kings/torture victims along with him on a 1524-1525 expedition to Honduras, perhaps to deprive them of any opportunity to rebel in his absence.

On the evening of February 27, Cortes received a report or a rumor that the Indian kings had rebellion on their mind just the same. The timetable from this report to execution is uncertain from the records, but if it was not within 24 hours it cannot have been much longer. Diaz, a hostile-to-Cortes witness here whose narrative indicates his dismay at proceedings, describes it thus:

I have now to relate a circumstance of a very different nature, which occasioned much grief to us all. Quauhtemoctzin and other Mexican chiefs who accompanied our army had, it would appear, spoken among themselves, or secretly determined to put the whole of us to death, then march back to Mexico, and assemble the whole armed power of the country against the few remaining Spaniards, and raise an insurrection throughout the whole of New Spain. This circumstance was discovered to Cortes by two distinguished Mexican chiefs, one of whom was named Tapia, and the other Juan Velasquez. This latter personage had been Quauhtemoctzin’s captain-general during our war with Mexico, and his testimony was borne out by the investigation which Cortes made into the matter, and by the confession of several of the caziques themselves who were implicated in the conspiracy. These men fearlessly declared, that seeing how carelessly and dispiritedly we roamed about; that numbers of the men were ill from want of food; that four of our musicians, with the buffoon and five soldiers, had died of hunger; and that three other men had turned back, more willing to run the risk of reaching Mexico again than of moving forward, the thought struck them that they could not do better than fall suddenly upon us while we were crossing some river or marsh, particularly as they were upwards of 3000 in number, all armed with lances, and several of them with swords. Quauhtemoctzin did not hesitate to acknowledge that these men had spoken the truth, but added that the conspiracy did not emanate with him, and that he himself had never for a moment contemplated carrying it into effect, but had merely spoken about it with the other caziques. All the cazique of Tlacupa confessed was, his having declared to Quauhtemoctzin that it was better to die at once than daily to have death before their eyes on these fatiguing marches, and see their countrymen and relations perish with hunger.

These were sufficient proofs for Cortes, and without any further ceremony he sentenced Quauhtemoctzin and his cousin the king of Tlacupa to the gallows. Before, however, this sentence was executed, the Franciscan monks, with the assistance of Dona Marina, strove to comfort these unfortunate men, and commended their souls to God. When they were being led to the place of execution, Quauhtemoctzin turned to Cortes, and said: “Oh Malinche! I have for a long time perceived, from your false words, that you had destined me for such a death, because I did not lay violent hands on myself when you entered my city of Mexico! Why are you thus going to put me unjustly to death? God will one time ask this of you!”

The king of Tlacupa said, he could only rejoice in a death which he would be permitted to suffer with his monarch Quauhtemoctzin.

Previous to their being hung, both these unhappy caziques confessed to father Juan, who understood the Mexican language, and they begged of him to commend their souls to God. For Indians they were good Christians, and they died in the true faith, and fully believed in our holy religion.

The death of these two monarchs grieved me excessively, for I had known them in all their glory, and on our march they honoured me with their friendship, and showed me many little attentions; for instance, they would often order their servants to go in quest of fodder for my horse; besides which, they were innocent of the guilt imputed to them, and it was the opinion of all who accompanied this expedition that they were put to death unjustly.

But I will leave this miserable subject, and return to our march, on which we henceforth observed the utmost vigilance, for we greatly feared the Mexicans might rise up in arms against us, after they had thus beheld their monarch ignominiously hung by the neck from a tree. But hunger, fatigue, and sickness weighed heavier upon their minds than the misfortune of Quauhtemoctzin.


Detail view (click for the full image) of the “rebel” kings hanged from a tree.

Gomara and, of course, Cortes characterize the accusations against the Indian kings as true and the proceedings against them lawful. From the footnotes in this same Bernal Diaz volume, we have this from the later Jesuit historian and ethnographer Juan de Torquemada, who was fluent in Nahuatl:

I find it differently represented in a history written in the Mexican language, and which I believe to be perfectly correct. While Cortes (the Mexican author says) was quartered in a certain township, the Mexican chiefs one evening began to discourse among themselves about the recent hardships they had suffered, and Cohuanacotzin said to Quauhtemoctzin, to Tetlepanquetzaltzin, and to other distinguished Mexicans, ‘Thus you see, gentlemen, from kings we are become slaves, and we suffer ourselves to be led about by Cortes and this handful of Christians. If we were other people than we are, and would break through the promise we have made these Spaniards, we could play them a pretty trick here, and revenge ourselves upon them for all they have done to us, and the ill-treatment my cousin Quauhtemoctzin has suffered at their hands.’ To this the Mexican monarch replied, ‘I beg of you Cohuanacotzin to drop this subject, lest some one should overhear us, and imagine we were in earnest.’ It appears (continues Torquemada) that they were indeed overheard, for the whole of this discourse was reported to Cortes by a low-minded Mexican of the lower classes.

By law, Mexican flags fly at half-staff in his honor on February 28.

* These texts are cited throughout the post, but for ease of reference … Bernal Diaz: Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, vol. 1, vol. 2 | Gomara: The Pleasant Historie of the Conquest of the West India; now called New Spaine | Cortes: History of New Spain, which is a Spanish text as I could not locate an English translation. However, even the Anglophone is liable to appreciate (from p. 225) the illustrations of Indian material culture observed by the Spaniards.

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1838: William Moore, thirsty for blood

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On this date in 1838, William Moore hanged at High Street, Maitland, New South Wales, a mere 25 days after slaughtering his master.

Australian convicts were commonly assigned to work for the free population — as Moore was to a butcher named John Hoskins/Hosking. Pissed that Hosking had reported him absent to the police when he ditched work the previous day, Moore on February 1st got drunk and

made an attack upon him with a knife, and inflicted six wounds, either of which would have caused death; he then left the house with the bloody knife in his hand, and wiping the blood off with his hand, he put it to his lips, saying, “This is flash Hosking’s heart’s blood, and, thank God! I have got a good appetite to eat it.” He then drew his finger along the blade, licked off the blood, and swallowed it!

The blood-licking was the least of it. Once the maniac was overpowered and the butcher’s shop examined, well,

[t]he first thing, which met the eye on entering, was a stream of gore flowing over the shop, and proceeding backwards by the track of blood visible on the floor, the body of the unfortunate Hoskins was discovered perfectly lifeless, his throat cut through to the bone, the vertebral column broken and a frightful gash on the chin; independent of these wounds, which were enough to have destroyed him, there was a second in the pit of the stomach, a third in the region of the heart, a fourth in the right side, a fifth above the hip, from which the intestines protruded in a frightful manner, a sixth across the arm, and a seventh, by which his left thumb was nearly severed from his body, that had evidently been inflicted when the unfortunate man was struggling with his murderer.

He was hanged to the hisses of a hostile populace at the site of Hoskins’s house.

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2000: Ahmad Ismail Uthman Saleh and Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar, renditioned

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On this date in 2000, Egypt hanged two Islamic militants whom it had been torturing for months. They were signal early victims of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s program — more (in)famous after the September 11 freakout but in fact long predating it — of “extraordinary rendition”.

“Rendering” — chill word — involves kidnapping a target and transferring him to some other country, and it enables the state(s) in question to sidestep strictures at both ends of the pipe. When first authorized by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1993, the proposed kidnapping of a militant was endorsed by Vice President Al Gore in these words:

That’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.

Over the course of the 1990s, quibbles about international law would fade from the discussion, and “renderings” became routine, albeit still secretive.

“The fact is,” wrote former National Security Council counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, “President Clinton approved every snatch that he was asked to review. Every snatch CIA, Justice, or Defense proposed during my tenure as [Counterterrorism Security Group] chairman, from 1992 to 2001, was approved.”

Nor did they remain merely tools to make an extra-legal “arrest” for the benefit of American courts — as was the case when Gore purposed to “grab his ass.”

According to Stephen Grey’s history of the rendition program, Ghost Plane, the CIA by by the mid-1990s had a growing presence in Europe, particularly the Balkans as Islamic militants began congregating. With the 1998 onset of the Kosovo War, Langley moved from watching to … rendering.

And in this case, that meant grabbing asses for Egypt, where those asses would certainly be tortured.

Members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, including the two men whose hangings occasion this post, Ahmad Ismail Uthman Saleh and Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sayyid al-Naggar, were kidnapped from Tirana, Albania in June 1998. They were then blindfolded, loaded onto a private plane, and flown to Egypt where they vanished for many months into the rough hands of its state security organ. Naggar, according to a lengthy November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal story by Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper,*

was nabbed in July 1998 by SHIK on a road outside of town. He, too, was blindfolded and spirited home on a CIA plane. In complaints in his confession and to his defense lawyer, Mr. Abu-Saada, Mr. Naggar said his Egyptian interrogators regularly applied electrical shocks to his nipples and penis.

Mr. Naggar’s brother, Mohamed, said in an interview that he and his relatives also were — and continue to be — harassed and tortured by Egyptian police. He said he had suffered broken ribs and fractured cheekbones. “They changed my features,” Mohamed Naggar said, touching his face.

Naggar also complained of being hung from his limbs and locked in a cell knee-deep in filthy water. One of four Tirana militants captured in this operation, Naggar’s torture would yield crucial evidence for the 1999 “Returnees from Albania” mass trial,** and indeed his confessions still remain an essential primary text on the movement of Islamic extremists in the 1990s.

As for Saleh,

in August [1998], Albanian security agents grabbed him outside the children’s park. During two months of detention in Egypt, he was suspended from the ceiling of his cell and given electrical shocks, he told his lawyer.

Both these men were executed on February 23, 2000, in connection with terrorism-related death sentences that had been handed down in absentia prior to their kidnappings in Albania. All of the nine death sentences issued by the Returnees from Albania trial were applied to absent defendants, notably including Al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri — a man who himself perhaps owes a large measure of his radicalization to Egyptian torturers.

CIA Director George Tenet testified in 2002 that his agency “had rendered 70 terrorists to justice” all told prior to September 11, 2001 (source). Most of the known third-country renditions of that period went to Egypt.

* As an index of the historical moment, it’s editorially interesting that this 3,600-word investigation ten weeks after 9/11 chooses to give its last word to an Egyptian state spokesman.

Egyptian presidential spokesman Nabil Osman said of such mass prosecutions: “Justice is swift there, and it provides a better deterrent. The alternative is to have cases of terrorism in this country dangling between heaven and earth for years.”

Mr. Osman brushed off torture claims by members of the Tirana cell, without commenting directly on their validity. Egypt permits alleged torture victims to seek remedies in civil court, he said. Members of the Tirana cell, however, have been held incommunicado with no way to file suit.

“Forget about human rights for a while,” Mr. Osman said. “You have to safeguard the security of the majority.”

This article was published right around the time the CIA captured Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was himself soon rendered into Egyptian hands so that he could be tortured into “confessing” a spurious link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; the “safeguarders” then shamelessly cited this absurd product of the rendition program as justification for the approaching Iraq debacle.

** Despite the nickname, not all “returnees” had been captured from Albania; others had been taken from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and other countries. There were also 64 people charged in absentia.

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