Cilacap, Central Java (ANTARA News) - Chief of Pasir Putih penitentiary Hendra Eka Putranto said here on Thursday that Brazilian drug convict on death row Rodrigo Gularte has been communicating normally with other prisoners.

"He is fine. There is no problem. He connects well during conversations. He chats normally," he stated at Wijayapura pier ferry port.

Even when you ask him "how are you today," he answers "I am fine," Hendra noted.

According to him, an examination by psychiatrists from Yogyakarta and Cilacap had earlier concluded that Rodrigo was suffering from mental illness.

Later, a medical team from the Central Java police command and the Attorney Generals Office checked his health condition. However, "I do not know their evaluation," Hendra explained.

On reports that Rodrigo often talks to animals, he remarked Rodrigo loves animals, especially cats.

"Perhaps it is because he loves animals that he is often seen talking to them," he added.

Rodrigo is one of the ten drug convicts awaiting execution as President Joko Widodo has refused to grant them clemency.

Gularte has been sentenced to death for smuggling 19 kilograms of heroin by hiding it in a surfing board in 2004.

Other foreign drug convicts facing execution are Australian nationals Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

The attorney generals office has yet to decide a date for executing them.

Meanwhile, Sabine Megel, the wife of another death convict Serge Arezki Atlaoui, visited him at Pasir Putih penitentiary in Nusakambangan. However, she refused to talk to newsmen citing she was very tired and hence could not speak to so many of them.

"I will come here again," she told newsmen while waiting at Wijayapura pier to cross from Nusakambangan into Cilacap in Central Java.

The couples three children: Yasen Arezki Atlaoui, Samia Ans Eliane Atlaoui and Alexandre Ferdinand Megel, also accompanied their mother. They met with Serge Arezki the day before at his judicial review session in Tangerang, Banten, West Java.

Atlaoui has been sentenced to death for his involvement in operating an ecstasy and methamphentamine factory in Cikande, Tangerang, from where some 138.6 kilograms of methamphetamine and 290 kilograms of ketamine and 316 drums of precursors were confiscated during a raid on November 11, 2005.

Reporting by Sumarwoto
(H-YH/INE)
EDITED BY INE/a014
(U.SYS/B/KR-BSR/A014)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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