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olice in East Java have decided to halt a criminal investigation of Lapindo Brantas Inc., the company widely blamed for the mudflow that displaced thousands of residents in Porong, Sidoarjo regency.

The police claimed Friday they lacked evidence to continue the investigation into Lapindo, a private oil and gas company partly owned by the family of the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare, Aburizal Bakrie.

The police also dropped criminal charges against 13 suspects in the case, including Lapindo general manager Imam Pria Agustino.

The suspects, the police argued, could not be charged under the Criminal Code or the 1993 law on environmental management because they were not proven to have deliberately made mistakes in Lapindo's drilling activities in Porong.

"We worked hard to find evidence as requested by the East Java Prosecutor's Office, but to no avail," East Java Police chief of special crimes Adj. Sr. Comr. I Nyoman Komin told The Jakarta Post in Surabaya.

He said legal facts presented at court trials and testimonies by experts could not prove that there was a correlation between the mudflow and gas drilling activities by Lapindo.

However, I Nyoman said that even though the investigation was dropped, Lapindo must still compensate the displaced people as ordered under a presidential decree.

"Only the criminal case has closed, but the compensations must go ahead," he said.

However, I Nyoman promised the police would reopen the case should evidence be found regarding procedural violations in Lapindo's drilling activities.

The criminal probe was based on a lawsuit against Lapindo, which was filed by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and leading environmental group, Walhi.

The police first submitted the case files to prosecutors on Oct. 30, 2006, but the prosecutors later returned the dossiers to the police, citing a lack of evidence.

The police then completed the case files and submitted them again to the prosecutors who also rejected them a second time.

The last time the prosecutors returned the dossiers to the police was on April 6, 2009.

Assistant to the East Java prosecutor's head of general crimes, Eddy Rakamto, confirmed that his office had returned the case files against Lapindo due to a lack of evidence.

"We rejected the dossiers because the testimonies from 12 expert witnesses did not completely prove the mudflow resulted from human error," he said.

"Nor did the police provide the chronology of drilling activities by Lapindo Brantas," he added.

Eddy however, declined to comment on the police's decision to drop the Lapindo case, saying the office was still studying the decision.

An immediate reaction was made by mudflow victims against the decision.

Mohammad Irsyad, a 44-year-old victim, said he was disappointed over the closure of the case as the government could not ensure the payment of compensation for the victims.

"I have not been compensated for my farmland of 4 hectares and hundreds of other residents who own plots of land have not been compensated either. Nor have we ever received payouts from Lapindo for our harvest failures, although many media outlets reported the company did pay them," Irsyad said.

In April this year, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) against Lapindo for what the plaintiff claimed was neglect of the rights of thousands of mudflow victims in Sidoarjo.

The YLBHI sued the government and Lapindo for allegedly violating the rights of the mudflow victims. The YLBHI demanded the court declare the government and Lapindo guilty of neglecting the victims' economic, social and cultural rights.