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Concept
Garrote
Summary
A garrote or garrote vil (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and similar variants) is a weapon, usually a handheld ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line, used to strangle a person.
A garrote can be made out of many different materials, including ropes, cloth, cable ties, fishing lines, nylon, guitar strings, telephone cord or piano wire. A stick may be used to tighten the garrote; the Spanish word refers to the stick itself. In Spanish, the term may also refer to a rope and stick used to constrict a limb as a torture device.
Since World War II, the garrote has been regularly employed as a weapon by soldiers as a silent means of killing sentries and other enemy personnel. Instruction in the use of purpose-built and improvised garrottes is included in the training of many elite military units and special forces. A typical military garrote consists of two wooden handles attached to a length of flexible wire; the wire is looped over a sentry's head and pulled taut in one motion. Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion have used a particular type of double-loop garrote (referred to as la loupe), where a double coil of rope or cord is dropped around a victim's neck and then pulled taut. Even if the victim pulls on one of the coils, the other is tightened.
Garrote-like assassination techniques were widely employed in 17th- and 18th-century India, particularly by the Thuggee cult. Practitioners used a yellow silk or cloth scarf called a rumāl. The Indian version of the garrote frequently incorporates a knot at the center intended to aid in crushing the larynx, decreasing the communication capabilities of the victim, while someone applies pressure to the victim's back, usually using a foot or knee.
The garrote (laqueus) is known to have been used in the first century BC in Rome. It is referred to in accounts of the Second Catilinian Conspiracy, where conspirators including Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura were strangled with a laqueus in the Tullianum, and the implement is shown in some early reliefs, e.
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