Interesting facts about the former Pudu Prison

[Pixs copyright Ewe Paik Leong]

Here are some interesting facts about this former infamous institution in KL:

--Original name of Pudu Prison (aka Pudu Jail) was Pudoh Gaol.

--The X-shaped building was designed by British architect Charles Edwin Spooner.

--It was completed in 1895 on the site of the former Pudu Village.

--First European hangman was a Mr. Galloway.

--During the Japanese Occupation (1941-45), scores of POWs from the Allied Forces were beheaded in the prison and their heads displayed atop the ends of bamboo poles as a warning to the populace not to resist the invaders.

--Notorious criminal, Botak Chin (aka Wong Swee Chin), was hanged in 1981.

--Australian drug traffickers, Brian Chambers and Kevin Barlow, were hanged in 1985.

--Its mural wall measuring 385 metres long and 5.4 metres high entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985.

--It functioned as a museum in 1977, 1978 and 2004.

--Mona Fandy, murderess of a Pahang politician, spent a short stint in Pudu Prison
in 2000 before her transfer to Kajang Prison where she was hanged.

--The hangman's noose costs RM4,000 and is made of the top-grade jute wrapped with cow hide.

--More than 200 convicts have been hanged since its existence.

--Muslim prisoners were hanged on Fridays; non-Muslim prisoners, on Wednesdays.

--In June 2010, demolition of Pudu Prison began in stages.

--With its violent history, it was reputedly haunted.


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