Free Once a Jolly Hangman by Alan Shadrake

case from start to finish is beyond all praise'. To the 18 sentence to three years for rioting with deadly weapons, after saying he concurred with the jury, he said: 'I am bound to tell them that they have to consider themselves among the most fortunate people alive in that the evidence apparently failed in the eyes of the jury to come up to the standards which the law requires before they can be convicted of the charges of murder. Here again there can be no possibility whatsoever that they were not members of this unlawful assembly, who with a large number of armed prison detainees, took part in this armed uprising. Here again the sentence which I am about to impose is quite inadequate to the occasion, but as it represents the maximum that the law allows me to impose, my hands are tied'. Just imagine if the evidence had not failed by a whisker to bring about the death penalty in these cases, Darshan
    Singh would have had 47 hangings on his hands. Earlier when the judge sentenced 11 accused to two years jail for rioting, he also told them it was utterly inadequate punishment but that was the maximum prescribed by the law for this offence.
    The trial which was over by 8.00 p.m. ended a day of suspense reported The Straits Times. 'As the court waited anxiously hour by hour, strong parties of policemen patrolled the precincts', wrote one of its reporters.
    Crowds gathered and left when there was no indication when the jury would give their verdict. At 2.30 p.m. came the first indication that the jury was in the last stages of their deliberations. Hastily, the nine defence counsel put on their robes and so did the prosecution, Senior Crown Counsel Francis T. Seow and his assistant Mr K.S. Rajah, Director of Public Prosecutions. The jury trooped in at 4.05 p.m. about five minutes after the court had assembled. All was still and deadly quiet. The foreman of the jury then stood up and read out in loud firm tones the verdicts again each accused individually in the numerical order in which they were arraigned before the court. The foreman then proceeded with the verdicts - verdicts of 'guilty of murder', 'guilty of rioting' not guilty', guilty of rioting', or 'guilty of rioting while armed with dangerous weapons'. The accused were referred only by their numbers - none by their names as charged.
    After announcing the sentences Mr Justice Buttrose turned to the special jury and said: 'The Singapore government indeed owes you a debt of gratitude which will be difficult to pay'. The Court of Appeal and the Privy Council considered appeals against the death penalty to no avail. They appealed to the President of Singapore which by then had become a fully independent sovereign state - again in vain.
    Darshan Singh had undertaken most arduous and most macabre task of his life. Perhaps it was the biggest, most arduous and most macabre task in the life of any executioner in history. These are the men he hanged: Tan Kheng Ann, alias Robert Black, alias Ang Chua; Chia Yeow Fatt, alias Botak; Cheong Wai Sang, alias Genii; Subramaniam Somasundram; Bobby Lim Tee Kang; Vengadasalam Somasundarjoo; Lim Kim Chuan, alias Tua Tai; Khoo Geok San, alias Kapalu Batu; Chan Wah; Hoe Hock Hai; Govindasamy Ponnapalam; Chew Seng Hoe; Chew Thiam Huat, alias Baby Chai; Sim Hoe Seng; Ng Cheng
    Liong; Tan Yin Chwee; Sim Teck Beng; and Cheng Poh Kheng.
    One of the most surprising aspects of this case I discovered while thumbing through disjointed archived records of what took place during that period was that all of the above prisoners who were hanged claimed they had converted to Christianity while waiting to be executed. Just before Darshan Singh went to work, the Reverend Khoo Siaw Hia, the prison's Methodist minister, arrived to give his final blessings. Later he produced a letter which was released to the media and signed by all of the above-named prisoners. 'Our Dear Rev. Khoo Siaw Hia, it began.
    We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and the depth of our