Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,195,588 members, 7,958,820 topics. Date: Thursday, 26 September 2024 at 03:25 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / 'am I Being Executed?'brazilian Killed Byindonesia Unawareuntil End, Says Priest (649 Views)
Ken Saro-Wiwa And 8 Other Ogonis Were Executed On 10th November, 1995 / Death Row Convict Asked: 'am I Being Executed?' / Federal Government Orders Bodies Of Four Nigerians Executed In Indonesia (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
'am I Being Executed?'brazilian Killed Byindonesia Unawareuntil End, Says Priest by onatisi(m): 9:50am On Apr 30, 2015 |
A Brazilian man executed by firing squad along with seven other prisoners in Indonesia on Wednesday had no idea he was about to be killed until his final minutes, the priest who counselled him has said. He also revealed that Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino woman who won a dramatic reprieve, had been aware a new suspect in her case had surrendered to police but was only removed from the prison about an hour before the killings. Rodrigo Gularte, 42, was shot dead alongside seven others, including four Nigerians, two Australians and an Indonesian, for smuggling cocaine into Indonesia in 2004. Doctors had diagnosed the Brazilian with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A second diagnosis, commissioned by Indonesia’s attorney general, has not been made public. Father Charlie Burrows, a priest who ministers to prisoners in Cilacap, said he had tried in vain to explain to Gularte for three days that he was about to be killed. “He was hearing voices all the time,” Burrows told Irish radio. “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.’ “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?’ ” Burrows said. “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.’ “He’s lost because he’s a schizophrenic. 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,” Burrows said. After Gularte was strapped to a wooden plank, Burrows was permitted to see him again: “He said, ‘This is not right, I made one small mistake, and I shouldn’t have to die for it.’ So he was annoyed more than anything else, because he’s a soft- spoken, quiet and sensitive man.” Burrows told Guardian Australia that guards on Nusa Kambangan, the prison island where Indonesia executes convicts, had broken down crying when 30- year-old Mary Jane Veloso said goodbye to her two children for what was thought to be the final time. He said Veloso had shown “a false sense of joy” during her final visit with her family and sons, aged 12 and six, but broke down at 2pm on Tuesday when told it was time to say goodbye. “She begged for more time, ‘Will I not get longer with my children? They’ll never see me again, I’ll never see them again,’” Burrows said. “The whole place broke down in tears. The warden and attorneys felt real bad about it. They said to me they didn’t agree with the thing, they just had to do their job, that there should be a moratorium.” |
Re: 'am I Being Executed?'brazilian Killed Byindonesia Unawareuntil End, Says Priest by onatisi(m): 9:57am On Apr 30, 2015 |
He said some of the
guards had asked him:
“Are we responsible for
the suffering of this poor
woman and the
families?”
Veloso, sentenced to
death after arriving in
Yogyakarta in 2010 with
2.6kg of heroin in her
suitcase, has claimed she
was set up by a human
trafficker. She was
granted a reprieve late on
Tuesday after the
suspected trafficker
surrendered to Philippine
police. Veloso was told of
the development on
Tuesday afternoon,
Burrows said, but her fate
seemed sealed.
It was between 10pm and
11pm, when the prisoners
were locked in their cells
for the final time, that she
was taken away. “We
were in the cells, just the
time they give to the
spiritual companions, and
they took her out,”
Burrows said.
“In the last minute she
was actually in the cell
with the police, there was
three police, and they
took her out back to
Yogyakarta.”
Just after 11pm the
prisoners were taken
individually from the
cells and driven to the
execution site. They
would not have been
aware Veloso had been
spared until they
assembled at the firing
range, he said.
He said the two
Australians, Andrew Chan
and Myuran Sukumaran,
led hymns among the
prisoners as they waited
to be killed, joined by
their spiritual advisers 30
metres away. “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,” he said.
Nigerians Raheem Agbaje
Salami (also known as
Jamiu Owolabi Abashin),
Silvester Obiekwe
Nwolise, Martin Anderson
and Okwuduli Oyatanze
were also executed on
Wednesday morning ,
along with an Indonesian,
Zainal Abidin.
The Indonesian attorney
general, HM Prasetyo,
said on Wednesday the
eight men, all drug
offenders, had been
executed simultaneously
at 12.35am local time.
They were declared dead
three minutes later.
“The result of the second
execution was better,
more orderly and more
perfect than the last,” he
said, referring to
executions carried out in
January and noting the
bodies were treated more
“humanely” this time.
“Out of the eight
executed, four, according
to their last requests, are
to be buried in their home
countries,” Prasetyo said.
“Two in Australia, one in
Brazil, and one in
Nigeria.”
Abidin, the only
Indonesian among the
eight, was buried in
Cilacap, near Nusa
Kambangan, on
Wednesday morning.
Salami was to be buried
in Madiun, East Java, and
Anderson in Bekasi, West
Java, he said.
The bodies of Chan and
Sukumarun were
expected to arrive back in
Australia for burial on
Friday.
As the bodies of the
executed arrived in
Jakarta, the United Nations
joined the condemnation. |
(1) (Reply)
It,s The Outgoing Government Intensionally Fustrating Us? / Does The President ( Jonathan) Really Know That Many Nigerians Are Suffering? / There Is No Fuel Scarcity In South East. I Bought #150
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 15 |