A Colombian necktie is a method of execution wherein the victim's throat is slashed (with a knife or other sharp object) and his or her tongue is pulled out through the open wound. Its origin coincides with the outbreak of La Violencia, the Colombian civil war which began in 1948 with the murder of leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. It is the fate that befalls one of the characters in Les 120 journées de Sodome written by the Marquis de Sade in 1875. The Colombian necktie is sometimes erroneously credited to drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who was known more for his preference for burning victims while they hung upside-down, but this infamous method of assassination was documented as early as 1950. It was intended as a method of psychological warfare, meant to scare and intimidate.[1][2]