Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Disgraced former East Timorese interior minister Rogerio Lobato has fled the country aboard a chartered Lear jet after a more than 24-hour standoff on the runway at Dili airport.
Lobato, who was last year sentenced to seven years' jail for his part in an arms smuggling scandal, has been trying to escape since at least May this year on the pretext of needing urgent medical attention. The Australian is aware of at least one medical doctor who refused three months ago to sign a medical certificate vouching for the severity of Lobato's apparent heart condition "unless I also can examine the patient".
Lobato finally procured a sympathetic doctor's certificate late on Wednesday. He did not return to jail after the medical examination to which he had finally submitted, but proceeded straight to Nicolau Lobato international airport.
His aircraft, however, was denied permission to take off as a power struggle between senior East Timorese officials played out, leaving the Lobato family, including two young children, trapped on the plane.
Prison guards and immigration officials stood by throughout the drama, as the possibility of Lobato's imminent arrest and transfer back to prison loomed.
Justice Minister Lucia Lobato – a younger cousin of Lobato – caved in late yesterday to the former MP's demand that he be allowed to travel to Kuala Lumpur.
Ms Lobato was sworn in to her new job on Wednesday as part of the inauguration ceremony for Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's administration. The position was one of a series of deals negotiated to secure the ruling coalition that has now sidelined the once-powerful Fretilin party.
She ran against Jose Ramos Horta in the country's recent presidential elections, but then advised her supporters to vote for Mr Horta during the runoff of that poll, rather than for her cousin's former Fretilin boss, Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres.
Until conceding defeat late in the afternoon, an angry Ms Lobato had tried to insist that while Rogerio Lobato's wife and other family members might accompany him to Malaysia, the couple's two young children should be denied permission to depart "as a guarantee that he will come back".
The family spent Wednesday night and all of yesterday aboard the eight-seater chartered Lear 45, much of it in sweltering heat, as lawyers, immigration officials, the two Singapore-based pilots and others argued about the flight's legality.
However, Lobato's lawyer, Paolo dos Remedios, eventually prevailed on Prosecutor-General Longuinhos Monteiro to intervene, saying: "I have given my personal guarantee that as far as I know, Mr Lobato intends to return."
In a text message that finally triggered the luxury jet's departure, Mr Monteiro assured air traffic controllers, who had been withholding take-off, that they were "only responsible to the air traffic control system, not to the liberty of the passengers".
According to Mr Remedios – who also works as a foreign investment adviser in the President's office – Lobato will undergo heart surgery in a Kuala Lumpur hospital as well as having kidney stones and varicose veins removed.
Riots that closed the airport early this week had by yesterday completely dissipated, although violence related to the announcement of Mr Gusmao's new administration continued in the country's east, particularly in the town of Viqueque.
Rogerio Lobato is the only survivor of 11 siblings, and has previously served time in an Angolan jail for diamond smuggling.
He is a prominent loyalist of former Fretilin prime minister Mari Alkatiri, who escaped prosecution over the same arms charges for which Lobato is supposed to now be incarcerated in the capital's Becora jail.