Minister of Executions

Not to be confused with Francesco de Pinedo, Italian round-the-world flyer, is Francisco de Pineda, strong-armed Cuban convict. A confessed murderer serving a life term, Convict de Pineda is the Republic of Cuba's official death-dealer. He rejoices in the title of "Minister of Executions." Last week he was ordered to execute a former friend for a crime in which the Minister of Executions himself had admittedly been an accomplice.

Today the official engine of execution at Havana is the garrote, a strangling machine. Up to four years ago Cuba's garrote reposed in the National Museum, shuddered at by thrill-seekers as a barbarous relic of the old Spanish regime. Then in 1925 it was restored to use by the suave but ruthlessly dictating Cuban who is still President, His Excellency General Gerardo Machadoy Morales. Though of mild appearance and a wearer of business-like tortoise-shell spectacles General Machadoy has been accused of having political enemies thrown to sharks (TIME, March n). His revival of garroting was significant.

The machine itself is a splendid old specimen: a strong, high-backed, Spanish oaken chair equipped with an iron collar and a plunger just beneath. A powerful lever at the back of the chair tightens the collar, strangles the condemned, at the same time forcing the plunger into the back of his neck, dislocating the spine. It was this ingenious antique which Minister of Executions Francisco de Pineda prepared to operate last week with his accustomed deftness, but in very special circumstances.

The crime which demanded the operation occurred 16 years ago. At that time Minister of Executions Francisco de Pineda, then just an ordinary thief, with two friends, entered the farmhouse of Emilia Muniz Garcia, 63. Together they trussed her up, gagged and robbed her. The gag shoved Signora Garcia's false teeth down her throat. She choked, died.

Francisco de Pineda was captured, condemned to death. Ziolo Rodrignez Rabano, one of his accomplices, escaped to Florida. Because the then Minister of Executions had been released from jail "for faithful services rendered," Cuba at that time lacked an executioner. Francisco de Pineda eloquently argued his own qualifications for the position. He got the job, and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

A month ago the escaped Rabano, now a dapper, perfumed Cuban racketeer, was arrested in Tampa, Fla. Five Cuban judges gravely reviewed the 16-year-old story of Emilia Garcia's false teeth, sentenced Ziolo Rabano to death by garrote.

In the death house the condemned Rabano refused to appeal for a commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment.

"It is better to die than to accept a living death behind the bars," said he to inquiring reporters. "In death I prove myself to be an innocent man."

Searching for a human interest story, sentimental correspondents hurried to another part of the jail to interview executioner de Pineda, the condemned Rabano's onetime friend. They found him in his cell, nervously munching bread and onions.

"Orders are orders," he shouted, "Ziolo? Of course I feel sorry for him, but i Que Diable! I have my job!"

Eight days later, his bravado gone, Minister of Executions de Pineda begged to see the warden.

"I can't do it," he cried. "I can't kill Ziolo. I alone committed the crime, and I alone should be the sufferer."

From his cell in the death house dapper Ziolo Rabano smiled triumphantly. "You see," said he, "I told the truth when I said I was not guilty. Now there will be a new trial. I shall go free."