Daily Times

Sri Lanka is looking for an executioner to fill the vacant position of state hangman, prison officials said Friday, after President Maithripala Sirisena ended the island’s moratorium on capital punishment.

Prisons spokesman Thushara Upuldeniya said a job advertisement would be placed next week for the post of hangman after Sirisena announced drug traffickers would be put to death instead of left in jail for life.

Sri Lanka has not executed a prisoner since 1976. Criminals are regularly given death sentences for murder, rape and drug-related crimes but their punishments have been commuted to life. The island still officially employs a state executioner, but since 2014 all three hangmen who have filled the post have quit after short stints at the vacant gallows.

“The previous executioners deserted the post,” Upuldeniya told AFP.

“But, we have to be ready to carry out executions after the government decision this week.” A salary of 35,000 rupees ($220) per month will be offered to the successful candidate, he said.

This week, Sirisena said Sri Lanka would return to hanging prisoners convicted of repeat drug offences as his administration announced a crackdown on narcotics.

Authorities say a tougher approach is needed to combat what they say is an increase in drug-related crime.

Sirisena said Tuesday he was “ready to sign the death warrants” of traffickers and deploy the military to tackle drug crime.

“From now on, we will hang drug offenders without commuting their death sentences,” government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said.

Published in Daily Times, July 14^th 2018.