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team from the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) has arrested former Merpati Nusantara Airlines president director, Hotasi Nababan, at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten,
immediately after he disembarked from a plane.

Hotasi was arrested in front of his wife and two children at Terminal 3 of the airport at 7:19 p.m. Tuesday after he declined to comply with a Supreme Court ruling issued on May 7, which sentenced him to four years in prison.

'€œHotasi has been proven guilty of committing corruption in a case related to the lease of two Boeing 737 aircraft with Thirdstone Aircraft Leasing Group [TALG], which caused the state to lose US$1 million,'€ AGO spokesman Tony Spontana said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Tony said Hotasi was quickly transferred to Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung, West Java.

Aside from the prison term, the Supreme Court also ordered Hotasi to pay Rp 200 million ($17,379) in fines.

The Supreme Court ruling overturned a 2013 verdict by the Jakarta Corruption Court, which had acquitted him of all charges.

The panel of judges at the corruption court found there was no evidence to support allegations that Hotasi tried to enrich himself from the project to lease the Boeing aircraft with US-based TALG in 2006.

The judges also found Hotasi not guilty of breaching a government regulation by failing to report the lease of the two Boeing aircraft during a meeting of the company'€™s board of directors.

The case centered on a deal with TALG to lease a Boeing 737-400 and a Boeing 737-500. As part of the deal, Merpati paid $1 million as security deposit. When TALG failed to deliver the planes on schedule, Merpati asked the company to pay back the deposit, but the request was ignored.

In April 2007, Merpati filed a lawsuit against TALG'€™s owners, Alan Messner and Jon C. Cooper, with the Washington DC Federal Court. The court ruled in favor of Merpati, declaring that the airline retains a right to get the deposit repayment plus interest.

Hotasi'€™s lawyer Juniver Girsang deplored the Supreme Court'€™s ruling, saying that his client'€™s sole intention in signing the deal was to revive Merpati'€™s business performance following a series of declines in revenue and profits.

Juniver also lambasted the prosecutors for making the arrest without showing a copy of the Supreme Court'€™s verdict.

'€œThe prosecutors treated him like a terrorist. They arrested my client in front of his family. Also, they violated Article 270 of the Criminal Law Procedures Code [KUHAP] for arresting a convict without showing the verdict'€™s copy,'€ he said.

In respond to the arrest, Juniver said he would file a complaint with the President and the Prosecutors Commission. Tony defended the arrest, saying that prosecutors have the obligation to arrest fugitives.

'€œHotasi has been named a fugitive since May. We asked him to turn himself in, but he refused. He left us with no choice but to forcibly take him into custody,'€ he said.