Brazil unable to halt citizen’s execution in Indonesia

The Brazilian government has exhausted all possibilities of avoiding the execution of Brazilian citizen Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking and whose execution by firing squad is scheduled for this Sunday, the South American nation’s ambassador said Friday.

“We have tried all possible diplomatic channels. We have worked on the case 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We still have one day left, but it looks highly unlikely” that the Indonesian government will reverse its decision, Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Alberto da Silveira said on Bandnews radio.

Cardoso Moreira, 53, an extreme sports trainer, was jailed in 2003 for smuggling 13.4 kilos (29 1/2 lbs.) of Peruvian cocaine into the Asian country in a hang glider, and was sentenced to death a year later.

During his 10 years in prison, “Brazil took all the legal and diplomatic measures possible, including the intervention of exPresident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, by which it managed to delay the execution of the sentence.”

However, the new president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, who took office last October, “is determined to carry out the sentence as part of his war on drugs, so it becomes a matter of sovereignty in which we cannot interfere,” Silveira said.

Widodo rejected clemency pleas for six convicts sentenced to death, an Indonesian and five foreigners: one Brazilian, one Dutchman, two Nigerians and one Vietnamese.

According to Amnesty International, although Indonesian authorities did not carry out any executions in 2014, this year 20 of the 64 prisoners sentenced to death are scheduled to be executed by firing squads.

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said Thursday in a communique that it is “closely following” the case and “continues to evaluate any and all possibilities still available” to stop the execution on Sunday (Saturday in Brazil).

According to state news service Agencia Brasil, Lula and current President Dilma Rousseff sent letters to the Indonesian government, but thenPresident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, though he did not execute the sentence, neither did he accept the plea for clemency.

Another Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, 42, caught trying to bring 6 kilos (13 lbs.) of cocaine into the Asian country inside a surfboard in 2004, has also received a death sentence in Indonesia.

In that case, da Silveira said, “there is still no response to the plea for clemency entered by Brazil” but the attorneys hope to have the Indonesian government’s decision by next February.

Based on data up to the year 2013, the South American country’s Foreign Ministry said that 3,209 Brazilians are behind bars abroad, of whom Cardoso Moreira would be the first to be executed.