The victim is also hung from the hands, but the ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This will cause pain and possible damage not only to the arms, but also to the legs and hips. History According to William Godwin, Girolamo Savonarola was tortured by strappado multiple times before being put to death in a trial by ordeal (fire). However, Savonarola apparently renounced his confessions after being tortured, and he was sentenced to be burned at the stake. This device was thought to be used during the Salem witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 to torture accused witches. Modern instances The "ropes" was one of several torture methods employed at the Hỏa Lò Prison, popularly known among Americans as the Hanoi Hilton during the 1964-1973 era of the Vietnam War. The site was used by the North Vietnamese Army to house, torture and interrogate captured servicemen, mostly American airmen shot down during bombing raids. The aim of the torture was usually not to acquire information, but to break the will of the prisoners, both individually and as a group, and to extract written or recorded statements from the prisoners that would be critical of American conduct of the war and praise their captors. According to a 1997 Human Rights Watch report, this technique was "widely employed" by the security forces of Turkey, where it is "usually used together with high-pressure water, electric shock, beating, or sexual molestation such as squeezing the testicles or breast or placing a nightstick against or in the vagina or anus." In 1996, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of torture for its use of reverse hanging. Turkey has been admonished by Amnesty International and other international human rights groups concerning the use of the technique. In 2003, one of the Bulgarian nurses interrogated during the HIV trial in Libya, Snezhana Dimitrova, stated that she had been tortured in this way. They tied my hands behind my back. Then they hung me from a door. It feels like they are stretching you from all sides. My torso was twisted and my shoulders were dislocated from their joints from time to time. The pain cannot be described. The translator was shouting, "Confess or you will die here". In November 2003, suspected terrorist Manadel al-Jamadi was tortured to death at Abu Ghraib prison during a Central Intelligence Agency interrogation