By Ainur Rohmah
JAKARTA, Indonesia
As a legal team prepares a last ditch request for a Brazilian death row inmate to be granted clemency, President Joko Widodo has said it is "only a matter of time" before Indonesia holds its next round of executions.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Rodrigo Gularte will lodge a plea in the Cilacap district court to make his cousin, Angelita Muxfeldt, his legal guardian on the grounds that he has a mental disorder.
They have said they will then request a second judicial review of his case, claiming he was mentally ill when he was arrested in 2004 trying to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine into Indonesia.
Gularte is one of 10 drug felons -- including Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan -- currently facing the firing squad in Indonesia.
Once all of their appeals are exhausted, they are slated to be executed together -- thought to be any time after the Asian African Conference concludes in the country April 24.
President Joko Widodo confirmed in an interview Monday that the executions would be held after the completion of their ongoing legal processes.
"There are procedures and the legal process that must be followed that I do not want to interfere in," he told the Antara news agency. "It is only a matter of time."
A member of an advocacy team for Gularte told the Tempo.co news website Monday that despite the attorney general saying he was fit to stand trial, Gularte should be transferred to a psychiatric hospital.
"We have asked the prosecutor to postpone the execution at least until the legal rights are met," Riky Gunawan said.
"We have proof through medical certificate that Rodrigo had suffered from mental illness since 1982."
Another international inmate among the ten on death row is Filipina Mary Jane Veloso. She is awaiting transfer to the Nusa Kambangan prison island -- where executions are carried out - after the Supreme Court rejected her judicial review last month.
Senior Philippine diplomat Jesus Domingo told the Jakarta Post on Monday that Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay is planning to visit her in jail while attending this month's conference.
Binay hoped to speak with Indonesian officials "to see if there are any other legal remedies that can be tried to secure her a release, or at least spare her from the death penalty," he said.
In past months, Indonesian courts have been rejecting challenges to Widodo's denial of presidential clemency.
On Monday, the State Administrative Court of Jakarta rejected an appeal request by Spain-born Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami for a second time, with the judge saying the court does not have jurisdiction in such cases.
The court had issued similar rulings earlier this month in the cases of Chan and Sukumaran.
Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo has said he would determine the exact date of the executions, which will be conducted simultaneously, after the Asian African Conference.
The ten convicts have been facing execution since February.
Outside of appeals from their home countries for the sentences to be commuted, their cases have attracted international attention.
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