Sri Lanka announced that 20 applicants will be interviewed later this month, for the post of hangman at the Department of Prisons.
Prisons Commissioner Rohana Pushpakumara said that the interviews will be held next week and they would be assessing “psychological and physical fitness”.
Ahead of the interviews the gallows at the Welikada Prison were being refurbished reported Daily Mirror. The site, where the massacre of Tamil political prisoners took place during the 1983 Black July pogrom, is notorious for the endemic use of sexual violence and torture against Tamil detainees (See here and here).
The interviews were announced following Sri Lankan President Maithriapala Sirisena stating he is expecting to approve capital punishment on the island by next year.
His comments contradicted that of Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who told the UN Human Rights Council that Sri Lanka is would "maintain the moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its ultimate abolition".