Lanka seeks hangman

Sri Lanka is looking for an executioner to fill the vacant position of state hangman, prison officials said yesterday, 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 various 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.