Hajj Abd al-Nabi says he used to strangle and drown animals as a child, making him the perfect candidate for the roll of Egypt's chief executioner. Courtesy MemriTV

THEIR careers are to kill people.

Meet Egypt's official executioner, Hajj Abd al-Nabi, and Saudi Arabia executioner Abdallah Al-Bishi.

Al-Nabi favours strangulation while his Saudi counterpart brandishes a sword.

Earlier today we told how al-Nabi recently boasted of killing more than 800 people - and loving every minute of it.

"In all honesty, I love my work. I just love it! I never say 'no' when they need me at work," al-Nabi says in a bizarre interview with Egypt's Video 7.

LIST OF OFFICIAL EXECUTIONERS

In the video, translated this week by the respected Washington-based MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), al-Nabi animatedly discusses his calling with more than a hint of pride.

The hangman says he kills only criminals and is doing Allah's work.

"I love people, and people love me,' he said. "But when it comes to carrying out my job, I am tough."

News_Image_File: Egypt's hangman Hajj Abd al-Nabi has killed more than 800 people. Picture: Video7 via MEMRI TV

The interview is extremely strange, by Western standards - but not even opponents of MEMRI have challenged its authenticity, and a spokesman for the institute assured us the clip is real.

More on MEMRI below

Al-Nabi throws his massive hands around excitedly throughout the four-minute clip, saying he learnt his skills as a child.

"I was a little Satan," he admitted.

As a 13 and 14-year-old "my hobby was to catch a cat, to place a rope around its neck, to strangle it, and throw it into the water.

"I would get hold of any animal - even dogs. I would strangle these animals and throw them into the water - even dogs.

"Strangulation was my hobby.

"When I applied for the job and did well on the tests - proving that I could take the psychological pressure and so on - they said: 'Congratulations. Now, grow a moustache' " - presumably a reference to moustaches being a sign of machismo in the Middle East.

News_Image_File: Hajj Abd al-Nabi says he was a 'litte Satan' as a child and would hone his skills on cats and dogs.

But al-Nabi, the chief warrant officer in Egypt's police and prison authority, admits that he "has a heart of stone".

"Only if you have a heart of stone can you be content in this line of work," he said.

Saudi Arabia's leading executioner is Abdallah al-Bishi, who like his father before him can execute 10 people in one single day. His style of killing is by decapitation, using a sword (sulthan). He also removes limbs by his sword under the country's sharia law.

News_Rich_Media: Saudi Arabia's executioner Abdallah al-Bishii

"Any executioner who wants to work in this field must know how to apply the theoretical knowledge. If he knows how to stand next to the person he is executing, how to concentrate on the blow, and how to land it, the rest is easy," he said in an interview.

"At work, if I let myself feel mercy or compassion for the person I am executing, he will not die at the first stroke. He will suffer. If the heart is compassionate, the hand fails. It can take two, three, four, or five strokes. God knows how many. He might not even die. If the heart is compassionate - that's it. The hand cannot function properly. Your hand betrays you.

"Once the mission is done, I feel relieved. I come home relaxed. I play with the children. We have fun. We have lunch. Sometimes we go out. Other times, we stay at home. Everything is normal. It has no effect on me."

Al-Bishi's son said that he would join him at an execution.

Hussein Urni is a district hangman, an Ashmawi, in Egypt.

"The first time it is a little difficult, the second time it gets a little easier, but from then on, it becomes run-of-the-mill," he said, in another interview transcipt from MEMRI.

"It's not different than a cameraman. That's his job, and he likes it. Like anyone who is trying to make a living, he goes to work, and prepares the chains and the ropes."

"My line of work as an executioner has no effect on my personal life. The proof is that people come up to me on the street... You'd have thought people would consider an executioner to be grumpy. A man's job is one thing, and his personal life is another. The first time children came to my kids at school ... Once, they saw my picture in a newspaper, and the kids wanted to be friends with my children, and were proud of them because their father was a celebrity."

What is MEMRI?

The institute states its mission is to "explore the Middle East and South Asia through their media," providing translations and analysis to "inform the debate over US policy in the Middle East."

It is independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit with a number of well-known names from government and media on its board of directors - among them former President George W. Bush's right-hand man Donald Rumsfeld and former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton.

However critics say it is anti-Islam and pro-Israel, providing only selective insights into Middle Eastern culture that ignore the mainstream and skew Western views.

The UK's Muslim Public Affairs Committee argues the clips it provides from Arabic media are often "very loosely" translated and many are "themed around pro-violence and anti-semetic sentiments within fringe elements of Muslims."

MEMRI executive director Steve Salinsky rebuffed that criticism, noting the MPAC is an "extremist organization associated with Holocaust denial."

Discussing the al-Nabi video, he said "unfortunately, it's not a fake".

MEMRI staff monitor Middle Eastern TV for clips which it then posts with translations.

Mr Salinsky said it wasn't unusual for Middle Eastern TV to screen interviews with state-appointed executioners.

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