Hangman, revisited

I read a few weeks ago about the official Singaporean hangman, in the run-up to the execution of Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van on drugs charges. There was a report on the BBC that while the execution was imminent, the hangman -- Darsan Singh -- had been made redundant. This was, according to the man himself, because:

"I think [the prison authorities] must be mad after seeing my pictures in the newspapers."

You don't say. In any case, the Australian press is now reporting that this is not so:

"Darshan Singh has not been sacked and continues to be a contract officer engaged by the prisons department," a spokesman for the prisons department said on Monday.

"There is no change to his status," added the spokesman, but he would not confirm whether Singh would be the executioner in Nguyen's case.

However, a civic minded Australian named Keith Sauerwald offered to do the job on the ground of his "...great dislike for druggos (drug addicts)."

If I tried making stuff like this up, you wouldn't believe it.