User:Fantasticaljoe/sandbox

Niven Souflikar was an executioner for the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan Mehmed(or Mohomet) IV. He is credited with over five thousand executions by using his bare hands or a thin garrote wire over a five year period.

He was given the title of Royal Gardener and would often use the hedge maze in the royal garden as the setting for his executions. Souflikar would give the prisoner a rough map of the maze and the two would race to the middle while royality would watch. If the prisoner made it to the middle then he/she would be freed and given a full pardon, although no prisoners accomplished this task.

The execution was not conducted by decapitation using an axe(common practice at the time). In the presence of nobility, Souflikar would slowly strangle the prisoner. After the prisoner had perished, the body would be dumped in the river that flowed through the garden only to be retrieved later and sold on the black market.