Father Charlie Burrows, a priest who acts as a spiritual advisor to prisoners in Cilacap, said he had tried in vain to explain to Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte for three days that he was about to be killed but the 42-year-old only became lucid enough to understand what was happening minutes before he was led to face the firing squad.
The 72-year-old Irish Catholic priest told the ABC that when the prisoner – who was arrested in 2004 with two other Brazilian couriers for bringing 6kg of cocaine into Indonesia stuffed in surfboards – finally began to comprehend his fate, he turned to the spiritual advisor and asked: “Oh no, oh Father, am I being executed?”
The reality only seemed to sink in for Gularte when he was about to be lead out of his cell on Nusakambangan Island early on Wednesday morning.
“I talked to him for about an hour and a half, trying to prepare him for the execution. I said to him, ‘I’m 72 years old, I’ll be heading to heaven in the near future, so you find out where my house is and prepare a garden for me,’” explained Burrows.
“But when they took [the prisoners] out of the cells … and when they put these bloody chains on them, he said to me, ‘Am I being executed?’ ”
“I said, ‘Yes, I thought I explained that you.’ He didn’t get excited – he’s a quiet sort of a guy – but he said, ‘This is not right.’
The priest said that Gularte then began to appear deeply anxious and confused.
“He was annoyed, he didn’t get angry. The big thing was why is this happening? This is not right, I made a small mistake. Why can’t they just leave me in jail on the island?” said Mr Burrows. “I thought I had explained to him but obviously it didn’t get through.”
According to the priest, Gularte’s schizophrenia was significant to his lack of comprehension.
“Because he had voices and these voice told him ‘no, everything’s going to be grand’ and he believed the voices more than he did anybody else,” said Mr Burrows.
The priest added: “He asked if there was a sniper outside ready to shoot him, and I said no, and whether somebody would shoot him in the car, and I said no.”
The coffin of executed Brazilian drug convict Rodrigo Gularte is placed at the hospital morgue in Jakarta.
According to reports, Gularte had been mentally unwell since he was a youth and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The Guardian reports a second diagnosis, commissioned by Indonesia’s attorney general, has not been made public.
Gularte’s family had always maintained his mental state had made him an easy target for the Brazilian cartels to coax him into trafficking drugs for them.
Despite his obvious mental illness, Indonesian President Joko Widodo rejected Gularte’s clemency case and he was executed along with Nigerians Raheem Agbaje Salami (also known as Jamiu Owolabi Abashin), Silvester Obiekwe Nwolise, Martin Anderson and Okwuduli Oyatanze, Indonesian, Zainal Abidin, and the two Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were among those executed by Indonesia on Wednesday.
A Filipino woman, Mary Jane Veloso was also set to be shot to death but was given a dramatic 11th hour reprieve.
Mr Burrows told the ABC Andrew and Myuran, led hymns among the death row inmates as they waited to be killed.
“They were all trying to be strong because it was uppermost in their minds that they had made a mistake and that mistake has had a devastating effect on their families.”
Hours after the prisoners faced the firing squad on Wednesday the Indonesian attorney general, HM Prasetyo, described the executions as “more perfect than the last.”
Prasetyo said the eight men had been executed simultaneously at 12.35am local time. They were declared dead three minutes later.
The executions have been condemned by the Australian government and PM Tony Abbott called the killings “cruel and unnecessary”. He has since withdrawn the Australian ambassador from Indonesia.
The bodies of Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran are in the process of repatriation and are expected to arrive back in Australia for burial on Friday.
TOP PHOTO: Executed Brazilian drug smuggler Rodrigo Gularte’s cousin, Angelita Muxfeldt and Father Charlie Burrows as they leave Nusakambangan port in Cilacap after the killings.
