For the Thoroughbred racehorse, see Estrapade (horse)

Estrapade (horse)

Estrapade was an American Champion Thoroughbred filly racehorse. Bred in Kentucky by Nelson Bunker Hunt, she raced at age three and four in France for Bruce McNall where her most important win came in the 1984 La Coupe de Maisons-Laffitte...

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Strappado is a form of torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

 in which the victim's hands are first tied behind their back and suspended in the air by means of a rope attached to wrists, which most likely dislocates both arms. Weights may be added to the body to intensify the effect and increase the pain.

Other names for strappado include "reverse hanging" and "Palestinian hanging", although this last name may be a misnomer

Misnomer

A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...

, because human rights groups do not believe that the technique is used by either Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 or the Palestinian Authority. It is best known for its use in the torture chamber

Torture chamber

A torture chamber is a room where torture is inflicted.- Methods of coercion :According to Frederick Howard Wines in his book Punishment and Reformation: A Study Of The Penitentiary System there were three main types of coercion employed in the torture chamber: Coercion by the cord, by water and...

s of the medieval Inquisition

Medieval Inquisition

The Medieval Inquisition is a series of Inquisitions from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition and later the Papal Inquisition...

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Variants

There are three variants of this torture. In the first one, the victim has his or her arms tied behind their back; 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

Dislocation (medicine)

Joint dislocation, or luxation , occurs when bones in a joint become displaced or misaligned. It is often caused by a sudden impact to the joint. The ligaments always become damaged as a result of a 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

Nerve

A peripheral nerve, or simply nerve, is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of peripheral axons . A nerve provides a common pathway for the electrochemical nerve impulses that are transmitted along each of the axons. Nerves are found only in the peripheral nervous system...

, ligament

Ligament

In anatomy, the term ligament is used to denote any of three types of structures. Most commonly, it refers to fibrous tissue that connects bones to other bones and is also known as articular ligament, articular larua, fibrous ligament, or true ligament.Ligament can also refer to:* Peritoneal...

, or tendon

Tendon

A tendon is a tough band of fibrous connective tissue that usually connects muscle to bone and is capable of withstanding tension. Tendons are similar to ligaments and fasciae as they are all made of collagen except that ligaments join one bone to another bone, and fasciae connect muscles to other...

 damage. The technique typically causes brachial plexus

Brachial plexus

The brachial plexus is a network of nerve fibers, running from the spine, formed by the ventral rami of the lower four cervical and first thoracic nerve roots...

 injury, leading to paralysis

Paralysis

Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...

 or loss of sensation in the arms.

The second variation is similar to the first, but a series of drops is 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 Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

, during his 1513 imprisonment after allegedly conspiring against the Medici

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 family in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, was subjected to this form of strappado.

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. This variant was known as "squassation".

History

According to William Godwin

William Godwin

William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

, Savonarola was tortured by strappado multiple times before being put to death in a trial by fire; Savonarola, however, apparently renounced his confessions after being tortured, which eventually led to his being put to death.
This device was thought to be used during the Salem Witch Trials

Salem witch trials

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...

 of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 to torture accused witches.

Modern instances

In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...

, prisoners were punished by having their hands tied behind their back, and then being suspended on a pole with their feet just above the ground for half an hour. This was also systematically used in Dachau Concentration Camp for infringement of camp rules. Originally the punishment used tree branches, but it was moved into a shower room on special poles so that victims could not relieve the pain as they could by using the tree.

According to a 1997 Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

 report, this technique was "widely employed" by the security forces of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, where it is "usually used together with high pressure water, electric shock, beating, or sexual harassment 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

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

 found Turkey guilty of torture for its use of reverse hanging. Turkey has been admonished by Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

 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

HIV trial in Libya

The HIV trial in Libya concerns the trials, appeals and eventual release of six foreign medical workers charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998, causing an epidemic at El-Fatih Children's Hospital in Benghazi, Libya.The defendants were a Palestinian...

, Snezhana Dimitrova, claimed 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.'"

Also in 2003, Manadel al-Jamadi

Manadel al-Jamadi

Manadel al-Jamadi was an Iraqi prisoner who died in United States custody during interrogation at Abu Ghraib Prison on November 4, 2003. His name became known in 2004 when the Abu Ghraib scandal made news; his corpse packed in ice was the background for widely-reprinted photographs of grinning...

 was found dead in what was described as "Palestinian Hanging" during interrogation by the CIA at the Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib

The city of Abu Ghraib in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq is located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000. The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib...

 prison in Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

. This was described by the US Army as homicide

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

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