After the executioners pulled black hoods over the heads of the two men, tightened nooses around their necks and pulled the lever opening the trapdoors, both fell like deadweights. But the hangmen’s calculations of weight, gravity and inertia — a grim science that has produced detailed “drop charts” used for decades around the world to ensure enough force for certain, rapid death but no more — appeared in Mr. Tikriti’s case to have been seriously awry. Iraqi officials who attended the hanging said later that for Mr. Tikriti, a man of medium height and build, the calculation allowed a “drop” of 2.4 meters, or nearly 8 feet, and about that length of thick yellow rope could be seen coiled at Mr. Tikriti’s feet before the hanging. But the video showed his head being snapped from his body as he fell, and ending up, still inside the hood, lying in the pit of the gallows about 5 feet from Mr. Tikriti’s headless body. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Mr. Bandar could be seen dangling from the rope above Mr. Tikriti, whose body was lying front-down on the floor of the dark, dank pit, blood pooling beside his severed neck.