Inquest hears claim spiritual leaders conspired to mislead police about Jarrad Antonovich’s death after ‘kambo’ ritual

Antonovich died during a six-day retreat in NSW’s northern rivers after he took a cocktail of alternative ‘medicines’

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A group of spiritual leaders at a retreat in the northern rivers conspired to mislead police about the death of a man who had just taken a cocktail of alternative “medicines”, a Bryon Bay courtroom has heard.

The inquest into the death of Jarrad Antonovich also heard that a Brazilian religious tradition fusing Christianity with Amazonian shamanic practices – including the drinking of hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca – gained increasing sway over an Australian community known as the “Church of Ayahuasca” in the lead-up to that fatal ceremony.

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