The family and legal team of the Brazilian man on Indonesian death row are doing everything they can to prevent his execution and have him transferred to a mental institution.
Rodrigo Gularte is in the execution group of drug offenders with the Bali Nine that the Indonesian authorities hope to execute ASAP.
Despite pleas from Gularte’s family and lawyers, saying that the man has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic who is delusional with psychotic tendencies, Indonesia’s attorney general HM Prasetyo said last month that the Brazilian is fit to be executed.
“Under public law in Indonesia you can’t punish a mentally sick person – not even six or 20 years in jail,” said Gularte’s attorney, Christina Widiantarti, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Prasetyo has reiterated that the law only protects pregnant women and children under 18 years old from execution, according to SMH.
But Widiantarti argues that under article 44 of the Indonesian penal code, people suffering from mental disorders should be sent to the hospital.
Gularte was reportedly diagnosed as bipolar when he was younger and then diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic last year in Yogyakarta. But when Prasetyo requested a second opinion and sent two police doctors from Central Java Provincial Police, he failed to share the results with Gularte’s legal team, family, and members of the Brazilian embassy.
“This suggests that the Attorney-General’s office is not transparent and seems to hiding something,” the lawyers said in a statement, as quoted by the SMH.
Gularte was arrested in 2004 for attempting to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine hidden inside surfboards.
Photo: AFP
