KARACHI: An accountability court sentenced on Thursday two men, including an official of Pakistan International Airlines, to five years’ imprisonment in a corruption reference.

The accounts officer of PIA, Ibrahim Noor, and cargo agent Syed Sohail Hasan were found guilty of misappropriating over Rs130 million through the sale report card of cargo in 2007.

However, the court acquitted another accused Aftab Ahmed Shaikh, the then administrative officer of PIA, after extending him the benefit of doubt.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs63.9225m each upon both convicts and in case of default they would have to undergo an additional six months in prison.

However, the judge of accountability court-I Rashida Asad in her verdict also observed that the investigation report pointed toward discrimination, and ‘pick and choose’ for implication of accused persons in the reference, adding that this fact sufficiently perused her to take lenient view while awarding the sentence.

The National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against the accused persons in 2011 while Asif Faiz and his wife Kiran Asif have been declared proclaimed offenders.

Initially, NAB’s executive board had authorised investigations against the then director finance, marketing head, general manager revenue and other senior officials of PIA. However, the investigating officer left out the senior officials during the investigation and came up with a reference against the low-ranked officials.

Man gets six years

An anti-corruption court sentenced on Thursday an office-bearer of a housing society to a total of six years’ imprisonment.

The honorary secretary of Alamgir Cooperative Housing Society Javed Roomi was found accountable for illegally transferring a plot of a woman to one Kamal Ahmed after preparing fake documents in 2007.

The provincial anti-corruption court judge Iqbal Hussain Maitlo handed down three years each in Sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of Pakistan Penal Code and also imposed fines. However, both the sentences would run concurrently.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2018