The saddest execution story you’ll read

Confused ... Rodrigo Gularte shortly after his arrest in 2004. Picture: AP. Source: AP

RODRIGO Gularte is relaxed about the death penalty. He knows it has been abolished across the world. The people that monitor and control him via satellite through the microchip they have implanted in his head have told him so.

Gularte, 42, is a deeply disturbed paranoid schizophrenic who is facing imminent execution by firing squad, along with Andrew Chan, Myuran Sukumaran and eight others.

He has no concept of what is happening to him. When his family visits, he is constantly distracted as he searches the skies over Nusakambangan prison for the manned satellite that is stalking him.

Gularte, from Curitiba in Brazil, was arrested in 2004 with two other Brazilian couriers bringing 6kg of cocaine into Indonesia.

He'd been treated for depression since his teenage years. He had become a drug addict and was an easy target for Brazil's drug cartels, looking for people to ship cocaine to Indonesia.

Troubled teen ... Rodrigo was struggled with depression Pictures: Supplied Source: Supplied

Warning signs ... condemned Brazillian, Rodrigo Gularte, has a history of mental illness and drug abuse. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied

Proof that Gularte was unwell was evident by what he did when he was arrested: he told police that the two men with him had nothing to do with it. He took all blame.

The two were allowed to go home to Brazil and the following year Gularte was sentenced to death.

The hearing was itself a travesty. Gularte's mother, Clarisse, now 71, and his cousin, Angelita Muxfeldt, 49, flew to Jakarta a week after his arrest. As they waited to see Gularte, a lawyer arrived for an unexpected late-night meeting.

The lawyer said he could get them into the police station, right at that moment, to see Gularte. He was trying to show them how influential he was. They were suitably impressed, and paid him "a lot" of money. He then abandoned his client.

When Gularte was sentenced to death in 2005, he was totally alone. The lawyer had fled with the cash, failing to tell the family and embassy officials that he was to be sentenced. He did not stand a chance.

Gularte was shifted from Tangerang prison outside of Jakarta to the prison island of Nusakambangan, where he and the others are to be executed, seven years ago. His condition has steadily worsened.

"He doesn't believe he will be executed," says Angelita. "He hears voices that tell him that it is abolished. He is sick, but says he doesn't want to go to a hospital because he is busy. He says he works in security at the prison.

"No other prisoners want to be near him because he talks to ghosts. He talks with them all night and other prisoners are scared of him. He sleeps with his head against the wall because he says he doesn't want the voices to catch him."

Hearing voices ... Rodrigo Gularte, pictured last week in Nusakambangan. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied

These days he wears a baseball cap backwards, pulled tight on his head and stuffed with paper because he says he is "trying to protect his aura".

This is not a last-minute stunt by his family to try and save Gularte from the firing squad.

The prison has been well aware of Gularte's illness for years, but he has refused all medication and suggestions he to go to a mainland prison hospital for treatment. He says there is nothing wrong with him.

The family last year engaged a private doctor to assess Gularte and the report confirmed his schizophrenia. This was prior to President Joko Widodo rejecting Gularte's clemency case — and that of all other 63 people on death row for drugs — in January.

The authorities rejected the opinion because it had not come from a government doctor.

Angelita managed to convince a government professor of psychiatry to visit him again in Nusakambangan early this month. He confirmed Gularte's schizophrenia and the family was able to get the prison governor to send the report to Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo.

Prasetyo's spokesman, Tony Spontana, said they he had received it but now wanted another opinion on Gularte's condition.

This has given the family hope that they might consider leniency. But Spontana pointed out there was no legislation preventing them from executing the mentally ill.

Now the family that loves him dearly waits in Cilacap, the city close by the prison island.

There is Angelita, another cousin, Marlise, 51, and mother Clarisse, who has made the long journey to Indonesia eight times since her son was arrested. She is a portrait in anguish.

Devastated ... Gulart's mother Clarisse Muxfeldt (left) and cousin Marlise Gularte De Carvalho visit his island jail in Central Java. Picture: Ardiles Rante. Source: Supplied

Asked what she wanted more than anything, Clarisse says: "Justice. Because he is sick."

Marlise says prison visits with Gularte are frustrating. "He thinks there are two of me," she says. "One is the good Marlise, one is the bad Marlise, who tries to blow him up with bombs.

"He says, 'I have to be careful of you. Because the other Marlise is bad.'"

He does nothing all day, except try to escape the voices. "He says he has a chip in his head," says Angelita. "He says a satellite reads his mind, that they are monitoring him. He doesn't have a name for them. He calls them 'they' and 'them'.

"He doesn't like us to speak much. He wants to do all the talking, and to take notes, and look up into the sky."

Terror ... With Nusakambangan island as a background, Gularte's mother Clarisse and cousins Marlise Gularte De Carvalho (left) and cousin Angelita Muxfeldt (right) talk of their fears Picture: Ardiles Rante. Source: Supplied

Most Brazilians are Catholic, but Gularte lives in a world that organised religion cannot reach.

"The only faith that he has is that he's going home," says Angelita.

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