KARACHI: A banking court has sentenced a man to a collective 13-year imprisonment for his involvement in parallel banking and embezzlement of a total of Rs21.425 million.

Presiding Officer of the Special Court (offences in banks) Javed Ahmed Keerio, found Riaz Hussain — a former branch manager of Askari Bank in Baldia Town —guilty and sentenced him to three years each under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 477-A (falsification of accounts) and one-year under Section 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

However, the court ruled that all sentences would run concurrently.

“In this case, the prosecution has succeeded in establishing its case against the accused, and evidence led before this court is confidence inspiring and circumstantial evidence and own admission of the accused while obtaining bail, made him guilty of the offence he has been charged with,” the court observed.

After pronouncing the verdict, the court directed police to take the accused into custody and cancelled the surety bond of the accused, who appeared in court on bail.

Discussing the mitigating circumstances, the presiding officer noted that the accused was arrested in 2021 and remanded for one year and two months in prison. However, in Feb 2023, he was released on bail after two of the witnesses (victims) in this case admitted before the court that they had received the amount from the accused.

“There might have further amount to be paid to the victims but his sincere efforts suggest that at least he has repented himself while realising that he had defrauded people thus, was ready to pay their amount, this attitude and conduct of the accused made me to take a departure from severe punishment as suggested in the provision,” the presiding officer noted.

According to the state prosecutor of the Federal Investigation Agency Muhammad Faisal Buriro, the agency had received a formal complaint against the accused person through an official of the private bank regarding the financial misconduct.

In the complainant, the bank stated that the accused had worked as a branch manager from 2013 to 2016 in their bank, and had orchestrated a “systematic fraud”. The bank alleged that the accused approached their 11 customers with an offer to invest in the bank under Term Deposit Receipts (TDRs) and promised them highly lucrative returns.

However, instead of investing the customers’ funds in the bank, the accused had issued fraudulent TDRs using official bank letterheads, the bank said. It added that the accused secured these documents with his genuine signature while forging the signatures of a required second signatory.

The accused managed to deceive the customers (victims) and embezzle a total of Rs21.425 million. The bank also said that the misappropriated funds were never recorded in the bank’s official accounts or ledgers, which led to huge losses for both the customer and the bank.

During the trial, the defence counsel contended that the documents produced in court were prepared after the apprehension of his client. He further claimed that the accused was made the victim of circumstances, adding that he was “badly handled by the senior bank officials who obtained this confessional statement forcibly.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2024