Drug plane still in Saramacca

The plane that had about 480 kilos of drugs on board and that was intercepted in the Saramacca District on March 13 was still on the airstrip located in the rice fields of Radj Oedit on Friday. Defense Attorney Irvin Kanhai confirmed that his client, Oedit, is currently still in the Netherlands. “The plane is still there and the police have closed off the property. Nobody is allowed to go there,” Kanhai told Times of Suriname. Oedit called Times of Suriname to announce that the State could expect a lawsuit. “My employees are not allowed to enter the fields. I have a rice company and it is time for the harvest. If that does not happen soon, everything will go to waste and my company will suffer huge financial losses. The State will have to compensate me for that because I did not ask them to let the plane land on my property. The authorities are responsible for that.” Sources indicate that the drug plane is not registered at the aviation officials in Suriname. Rumors that have been circulating on social media suggest that Oedit’s airstrip is about 2 kilometers long. Oedit claimed that he does not exactly how long the airstrip is but that he is certain that it does not have a length of 2 kilometers. The runway at Zorg and Hoop has a length of 750 meters while the runway at the Johan Adolf Pengel (JAP) International Airport is 3.5 kilometers long. Arjan Ramlakhan, the attorney representing the 5 workers of Oedit who were arrested, told Times of Suriname that the examining judge deemed the arrest of 2 of the workers unlawful. The Public Prosecutor’s Office lodged an appeal but the 2 suspects were released after the Court of Justice had also deemed their arrest unlawful.