Prosecutors hunt former chief editor of Playboy Indonesia

South Jakarta Prosecutors' Office launched a search for the former chief editor of Playboy Indonesia, Erwin Arnada, after he failed to show up on Thursday.

M. Yusuf, the office's chief, told kompas.com they sent teams to Denpasar, Bali; Parung, Bogor; South Jakarta and to Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to look for Arnada.

Yusuf said that Arnada had promised to turn himself in on Thursday.

“I guess he's no longer cooperative,” Yusuf said.

The Indonesian edition of Playboy stirred controversy when it hit newsstands in 2006, causing an uproar among several Islamic groups, which described the men’s magazine as a symbol of moral decadence.

The South Jakarta District Court cleared Erwin of all charges in 2007, when presiding judge Efran Basuning said the photographs presented at Erwin’s trial were not pornographic. The Jakarta High Court later cleared Erwin of all charges.

The Supreme Court granted a prosecutor’s appeal in July 2009 and sentenced Erwin to two years in prison for public indecency.