TheeBadOne
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He has a calm and untroubled look but Bangkwang jail's chief executioner has been shooting people for the past 18 years. Alex Spillius reports from Bangkok
Chaowalate Jarubun will never forget the first time he killed a man.
"I was very nervous inside, but outside I was calm," he remembers.
He had no idea then, in November 1984, that he would continue shooting people dead for 18 years.
He has executed 55 prisoners at Thailand's maximum security Bangkwang jail. He used an automatic rifle, usually discharging eight to 10 rounds from a full magazine into the condemned person. He aimed at the heart.
"People may think it too much, but this is how we helped prisoners die more quickly," he said. Another officer was on standby in case his weapon failed or the job was not done. He was never needed.
Other executioners came and went, pleading to be relieved of the duty or leaving the prison service. Mr Chaowalate, who was assigned to the execution team after he had been a prison officer for 11 years, saw it as his responsibility to continue.
When he did raise the possibility of stopping, his superiors asked him to carry on. He was too good at the job and at coping with the stress.
But, to his relief, Thailand this week officially switched to death by lethal injection, and a new boss decided that the veteran executioner had taken enough lives.
"Thailand is following a global trend," said Mr Chaowalate, 55, who performed his final killing last December. "There are concerns about human rights with firing squads but injection isn't guaranteed to work quickly. If the prisoner is tense there can be problems with the blood vessels and they have to cut into the arm again. Execution is inhumane, full stop."
He has a calm, considerate and untroubled look. He coped with the strain, he said, partly because the executions came irregularly - the rest of the time he performed normal functions - and because he kept reminding himself that he was fulfilling a lawful duty and that the doomed were paying debts to a society they had wronged.
"I remember them all," he said of his victims. "Each one was a loss but the people they wronged had also lost." Many of the condemned were murderers, but he thinks some did not deserve to die, like the women and the minor drug dealers.
He depended on Thailand's religion, Buddhism, in which the bad karma of killing can be balanced by the good karma of prayer and making merit.
"Afterwards, I would go to the temple to make merit for the dead, to be sure there was nothing between his spirit and me. Of course it was stressful. It used to trouble my mind, but I was OK," he said. He is happily married with three children.
He was given only a few hours' notice of each execution and would not look at the prisoner's files until afterwards. "You don't want to know the man you are about to shoot has got four kids and a poor wife."
He became expert at composing prisoners as they entered the death ground, a bare concrete room. "You had to see what they needed. They were all frightened, but some didn't want to talk. Others I had to stop panicking.
"I patted them on the shoulder and said, 'Be calm, these are the last minutes of your life, you better think if you have left out anything out of your will or your last letter to your family'.
"Some screamed they were innocent. You have to remind them about karma, that they are paying their debts."
After Buddhist monks read the last rites, the prisoners were tied to a pole. A lotus flower and three incense sticks were put in their hands to ease the spirit's journey, then they were blindfolded and shot.
With 30 years in the service, Mr Chaowalate now regularly gives lectures at schools and colleges.
"I want to tell our children how to behave," he said. "I like to tell them the right way to live."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...ng24.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/24/ixworld.html
~~~~~~~~~~~
Things are quite a bit different on the other side of the pond!
Chaowalate Jarubun will never forget the first time he killed a man.
"I was very nervous inside, but outside I was calm," he remembers.
He had no idea then, in November 1984, that he would continue shooting people dead for 18 years.
He has executed 55 prisoners at Thailand's maximum security Bangkwang jail. He used an automatic rifle, usually discharging eight to 10 rounds from a full magazine into the condemned person. He aimed at the heart.
"People may think it too much, but this is how we helped prisoners die more quickly," he said. Another officer was on standby in case his weapon failed or the job was not done. He was never needed.
Other executioners came and went, pleading to be relieved of the duty or leaving the prison service. Mr Chaowalate, who was assigned to the execution team after he had been a prison officer for 11 years, saw it as his responsibility to continue.
When he did raise the possibility of stopping, his superiors asked him to carry on. He was too good at the job and at coping with the stress.
But, to his relief, Thailand this week officially switched to death by lethal injection, and a new boss decided that the veteran executioner had taken enough lives.
"Thailand is following a global trend," said Mr Chaowalate, 55, who performed his final killing last December. "There are concerns about human rights with firing squads but injection isn't guaranteed to work quickly. If the prisoner is tense there can be problems with the blood vessels and they have to cut into the arm again. Execution is inhumane, full stop."
He has a calm, considerate and untroubled look. He coped with the strain, he said, partly because the executions came irregularly - the rest of the time he performed normal functions - and because he kept reminding himself that he was fulfilling a lawful duty and that the doomed were paying debts to a society they had wronged.
"I remember them all," he said of his victims. "Each one was a loss but the people they wronged had also lost." Many of the condemned were murderers, but he thinks some did not deserve to die, like the women and the minor drug dealers.
He depended on Thailand's religion, Buddhism, in which the bad karma of killing can be balanced by the good karma of prayer and making merit.
"Afterwards, I would go to the temple to make merit for the dead, to be sure there was nothing between his spirit and me. Of course it was stressful. It used to trouble my mind, but I was OK," he said. He is happily married with three children.
He was given only a few hours' notice of each execution and would not look at the prisoner's files until afterwards. "You don't want to know the man you are about to shoot has got four kids and a poor wife."
He became expert at composing prisoners as they entered the death ground, a bare concrete room. "You had to see what they needed. They were all frightened, but some didn't want to talk. Others I had to stop panicking.
"I patted them on the shoulder and said, 'Be calm, these are the last minutes of your life, you better think if you have left out anything out of your will or your last letter to your family'.
"Some screamed they were innocent. You have to remind them about karma, that they are paying their debts."
After Buddhist monks read the last rites, the prisoners were tied to a pole. A lotus flower and three incense sticks were put in their hands to ease the spirit's journey, then they were blindfolded and shot.
With 30 years in the service, Mr Chaowalate now regularly gives lectures at schools and colleges.
"I want to tell our children how to behave," he said. "I like to tell them the right way to live."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...ng24.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/24/ixworld.html
~~~~~~~~~~~
Things are quite a bit different on the other side of the pond!
