Yoseph Kelen, Kupang – Indonesian police have not charged a district chief for ordering the closure of an airport in East Nusa Tenggara province after he failed to obtain a flight ticket, but have charged the public order officers who carried out the blockade.

The case files submitted to prosecutors by provincial police in the case of the blockade last December of Turelelo So'a Airport in Ngada district lists 22 people as being charged under the 2009 Aviation Law. Missing from that list, however, is Marianus Sae, the Ngada district chief, who has been named a suspect in the case.

"We still haven't received the case file on Marianus, who ordered the blockade, from investigators," Sr. Comr. Muchammad Slamet, the provincial police's director of special crimes, said on Tuesday in Kupang, the provincial capital. "When we get it, we'll immediately hand it over to the prosecutors to process."

The police investigation is being led by officials from the Transportation Ministry. The lead investigator declined to say why his team had not submitted its report on Marianus to the police.

A spokesman for the prosecutors' office confirmed the receipt of the case files from the police but would not say how soon the case could go to court.

The 22 public order officers are charged with endangering aviation safety after they blocked the airport runway. They did so on Marianus's orders after the latter got angry that he was unable to get a ticket for a flight home from Kupang because the flight was fully booked.

The blockade lasted two hours and prevented the Merpati Nusantara flight that Marianus wanted to fly on to land at the airport. The plane was forced to turn back to Kupang. Under the charges against them, the suspects face up to 15 years in prison and Rp 1 billion ($85,100) in fines if convicted.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/district-chief-ordered-airport-blockade-evades-charges/