Garrote

From the torture museum of Freiburg im Breisgau

A garrote or garrote vil (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and garrotte) is a weapon, most often referring to a handheld ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle a person.

Assassination weapon

The garrote has been used for centuries as a means of silent assassination. It was widely employed in 17th and 18th century India as an assassination device, particularly by the Thuggee cult. Practitioners used a yellow silk or cloth scarf called a rumāl. A garrote can be made out of many different materials, including ropes, cable ties, fishing lines, nylon, guitar strings, telephone cord or piano wire. The Indian version of the garrote frequently incorporates a knot at the center intended to aid in crushing the larynx while applying pressure to the victim's back, usually by means of a foot or knee.

A stick may be used to tighten the garrote (the Spanish word actually refers to the stick itself) so it is a pars pro toto where the eponymous component may actually be absent. In Spanish, the term may also refer to a rope and stick used to constrict a limb as a torture device.

Since World War II the garrote has been regularly employed as a weapon by soldiers as a silent means of eliminating sentries and other enemy personnel. Instruction in the use of purpose-built and improvised garrottes is included in the training of many elite military units and special forces. A typical military garrote consists of two wooden handles attached to a length of flexible wire; the wire is looped over a sentry's head and pulled taut in one motion. Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion have used a particular type of double-loop garrote (referred to as la loupe), where a double coil of rope or cord is dropped around a victim's neck and then pulled taut. Even if the victim pulls on one of the coils, he only succeeds in tightening the other.

Execution device

A mannequin is placed in a garrote to demonstrate the position of a human in the device

A 1901 execution at the old Bilibid Prison, Manila, Philippines

In this 15th-century depiction of the burning of Albigensians after an auto de fe, the condemned had been garroted previously. It is one of the first depictions of a garrote. Pedro Berruguete, Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe.

A Spanish priest garroted by Napoleon's forces for carrying a pocket knife

The garrote was the principal device used for capital punishment in Spain for hundreds of years. Originally, it was an execution where the convict was killed by hitting him with a club (garrote in Spanish). This later developed into a strangulation device, where the condemned was tied to a wooden stake, with a loop of rope placed around his neck. A wooden stick was placed in the loop, and by rotating the stick, the rope was tightened until the condemned person was strangled to death. As time went on, the execution method was modified in the form of a wooden chair to which the condemned was bound, while the executioner tightened a metal band around his/her neck with a crank or a wheel until asphyxiation of the condemned person was accomplished.

Other versions of this device incorporated a fixed metal blade or spike directed at the spinal cord to hasten the breaking of the neck. Such a device can be seen in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, the Coppola classic "The Godfather", as well as the Banderas/Jolie film, Original Sin. The spiked version, called the Catalan garrote, was used as late as 1940. American authorities kept the garrote for a time in the Philippines after that Spanish colony was captured in 1898. Its use was abolished in 1902 (Act No. 451, passed September 2, 1902). Notable victims of the garrote in the Philippines include the trio of native priests, the Gomburza, for their alleged participation in the 1872 Cavite mutiny.

American military authorities in Puerto Rico also used the garotte to execute at least five convicted murderers in 1900. In a report to Congress, the American military governor opined "that execution by the garotte is far less inhumane and revolting than execution by hanging." However, use of this execution method was soon discontinued and replaced by hanging. (Since 1929, capital punishment has not existed under Puerto Rican law.)

In the Ottoman Empire, execution by strangulation was reserved for very high officials and members of the ruling family. Unlike the Spanish version, a bowstring was used instead of a tightening collar.

The garrote (Latin: laqueus) is known to have been used in the first century BC in Rome. It is referred to in accounts of the Second Catilinian Conspiracy, where conspirators including Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura were strangled with a laqueus in the Tullianum, and the implement is shown in some early reliefs, e.g., Répertoire de Reliefs grecs et romains, tome I, p. 341 (1919). It was also used in the Middle Ages in Spain and Portugal. It was employed during the conquista of the Americas, notably in the execution of the Inca emperor Atahualpa.

During the Peninsular War of 1808–1814, French forces regularly used the garrote to execute Spanish guerrilleros, priests, and other opponents to Napoleonic rule. Around 1810 the earliest known metallic garrote appeared in Spain, and on 28 April 1828, the garrote was declared the sole method of executing civilians in that country.

In May 1897, the last public garroting in Spain was performed in Barcelona. After that, all executions were performed inside prisons. In 1935 in Spain the legislature adopted a law prohibiting any member of the armed forces from being a Freemason. As a result of this edict, 80 Freemasons were garroted to death in Málaga. This was one of the many issues that led to unrest that became the Spanish Civil War.

The last civilian executions in Spain, both by garroting, were those of Pilar Prades in May 1959 and José María Jarabo in July 1959. Recent legislation had caused many crimes (such as robbery-murder) to fall under the jurisdiction of military law; thus, prosecutors rarely requested civilian executions. Military executions were still performed in Spain until the 1970s. The garrotings of Heinz Ches (real name Georg Michael Welzel) and Salvador Puig Antich in March 1974, both convicted of killing police officers, were the last state-sanctioned garrotings in Spain and in the world.

With the 1973 Penal Code, prosecutors once again started requesting execution in civilian cases. If the death penalty had not been abolished in 1978 after dictator Francisco Franco's death, civilian executions would most likely have resumed. The last man to be sentenced to death by garroting was José Luis Cerveto "el asesino de Pedralbes" in October 1977, for a double robbery-murder in May 1974. Cerveto requested execution, but his sentence was commuted. Another prisoner whose civilian death sentence was commuted was businessman Juan Ballot, for the contract killing of his wife in Navarre in November 1973.

In Spain, the garrote was abolished in 1978 along with the death penalty after adoption of a new constitution. The writer Camilo José Cela obtained a garrote (which had probably been used for the execution of Puig Antich) from the Consejo General del Poder Judicial to display at his foundation. The device was kept in storage in Barcelona. It was displayed for a time in the room that the Cela Foundation devoted to his novel La familia de Pascual Duarte until Puig Antich's family asked for its removal.

In 1990, Andorra became the last country to officially abolish the death penalty by garroting, though this method had not been employed there since the late 19th century.

Popular Culture

In the movie Goya's Ghosts, the character Brother Lorenzo (Javier Bardem) is killed by a garrote.

The film 'Salvador' with Daniel Brühl, portrays the life of Salvador Puig Antich, the last executed by garrote in Spain.

The Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse has a song called 'The Strangulation Chair', which refers to sentenced to garrote.

Throughout the popular Hitman games series, the titular Agent 47 carries with him a garrote dubbed 'Fiber Wire'. Next to his appearance and AMT Hardballers, the garrote is his trademark.