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

Jarrad Antonovich, right, whose death occurred during a six-day northern rivers retreat after he endured a prolonged reaction to a ‘kambo’ ritual. Photograph: Supplied

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 Byron 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.