Executed Brazilian ‘was oblivious to fate’
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A mentally ill Brazilian executed in Indonesia this week was delusional and oblivious to his fate until the final moments before he faced a firing squad, his lawyer and priest said yesterday.
Convicted drug trafficker Rodrigo Gularte, 42, was executed along with six other foreigners on Wednesday, despite his family’s pleas that he was a paranoid schizophrenic.
“He had a delusional mind,” Gularte’s lawyer Ricky Gunawan said, adding that the Brazilian failed to appreciate the reality when given 72 hours’ notice of his execution.
“When we said your death sentence will be implemented, he said, ‘What death sentence? I will not be sentenced to death.’
“I’m not sure whether he really 100 percent understood he would be executed,” he said, adding that Gularte was adamant the water on their prison island was poisoned.
The lawyer said he tried to ask Gularte about his final requests.
“He was just laughing. ‘Is it just like Aladdin, when we ask for three wishes?’” Gunawan quoted Gularte as asking.
“When we tried to talk about the serious things... he kept avoiding, to other silly things. He was calm, as if nothing was happening.”
Gularte was arrested in 2004 while trying to enter Indonesia with six kilograms of cocaine in his surfing gear.
Irish priest Father Charlie Burrows, who was Gularte’s counsellor in the final days, said the Brazilian was confused about what was happening.
“I thought he’d got the message he was to be executed but... when the chains started to go on, he said to me, ‘Oh Father... am I being executed?’” Burrows told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Brazil has expressed “deep regret” at Gularte’s execution and said it is weighing its next move, having stressed the fragility of his state of mind as grounds for clemency.
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