'Am I being executed? That's not right':

                                                                                            

The Brazilian man shot dead alongside Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia was a paranoid schizophrenic who didn't realise he was being executed until his last moments of life. More photos after the cut...

Rodrigo Gularte, 42, asked 'Am I being executed?' as he was being chained up to be transported to the jungle clearing on Nusakambangan island where he and seven other death row inmates were killed by firing squad in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The Irish priest appointed to be Gularte's spiritual advisor in his final hours said he talked to Gularte for an hour and a half late on Tuesday night to prepare him for the executions, but the convicted drug trafficker was confused about his fate and complained about hearing voices.

'When they took him out of the cell I was with him and he went to the front place, just to go out to where the car was, and then they put these bloody chains on them,' Father Charlie Burrows told Irish radio station RTE.

'And he said to me "Am I being executed?"

'And I said "Yes, I thought I was explaining that to you".

'And he didn't get excited because he was a very quiet kind of a guy but he said "This is not right."' Father Burrows said Gularte then became paranoid that he would be shot while he was in the car. 

'Because he's schizophrenic he said "Oh, there's a sniper waiting outside to shoot to me" and I said "No, you're safe now."' Father Burrows said once they arrived at the killing fields, all eight death row inmates were tied to crosses with cable ties.

All eight men refused to wear blindfolds, choosing instead to face their executioners.

Father Burrows said once the men were tied up he was allowed to go and speak to Gularte again, who did not become hysterical but spoke in protest of his imminent death.

'I talked to him and he said "This is not right, I made one small mistake and I shouldn't be having to die for it,"' he said.

'He was annoyed more than anything else because he's a very soft spoken, quiet and sensitive man.'

Gularte was arrested in 2004 on arrival at Jakarta airport with about six kilograms (13 pounds) of cocaine hidden in several surfboards. 

He was sentenced to death by the Tangerang District Court in February 2005, and spent seven of his 11 years in prison on Nusakambangan.

Gularte's family tried without success to obtain clemency for him, saying doctors have classed him as paranoid schizophrenic.

Under Indonesian law, a mental health disease can provide for clemency in death penalty cases.

Jakarta twice turned down appeals for clemency and the Indonesian authorities told the Gularte family only a government doctor's diagnosis would be considered for Rodrigo's possible reprieve.

Gularte's devastated family always insisted he was mentally ill and fell prey to drugs in his teens and to a Brazilian drug cartel in his early thirties.

He was so deluded that when he was arrested he told Indonesian police his two fellow couriers had nothing to do with the scheme. They were sent home. A year later, he was sentenced to death.

In an interview with Daily Mail Australia in February, when Gularte's family still had hope he might be spared, his cousin Marlise Gularte de Cavalho said the 42-year-old would tell his family he didn't believe that he would be executed during prison visits.

He insisted a manned satellite over Nusakambangan was stalking him and voices in his head told him he wouldn't be executed because 'the voices say the death penalty has been abolished'.

'For the two hours we are there I guess he would talk lucidly for about 10 minutes,' Ms de Cavalho told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms de Cavalho spent weeks with Gularte's other cousin, Angelita Muxfeldt, and his mother Clarisse Muxfeldt taking the police ferry almost daily to visit Nusakambangan where he was held island's newest prison, Pasir Putih, which lies not far from one of its famed white sand beaches. 

Angelita tried for years to make Rodrigo aware of the danger he was in, but afflicted by delusions he would tell her it 'was all a trick'. 'Now I don't tell him because he is calm and not frightened. Perhaps it is better that way.'

Dailymail

Brazilian executed drug smuggler Rodrigo Gularte's prayer ceremony at the hospital morgue in Jakarta

Gularte was arrested in 2004 for attempting to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine into Indonesia

Angelita Muxfeldt (right), cousin of executed Brazilian drug convict Rodrigo Gularte, checks the condition of the body of her cousin at the hospital morgue in Jakarta on Wednesday

Workers carry coffin of Brazilian executed drug smuggler Gularte during his prayer ceremony

July 31, 2004. A Customs officer inspects surfing boards used by Brazil's citizen Rodrigo Gularte to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine into Indonesia