KARACHI, Dec 12: An accountability court on Thursday sentenced to five years each three of the accused of Alliance Motors & T. J. Ibrahim Company for depriving its investors of billions of rupees.

Judge Syed Aley Maqbool Rizvi of the accountability court-I pronounced the verdict after hearing the final arguments from both sides.

According to the verdict, the prosecution had successfully proved the case against the accused for their involvement in the case.

The accused in the case were Asghar Ali Qureshi, who had later died in jail, Hamid Ali Qureshi, Mohammed Tayyab and Mohammed Ibrahim, all senior executives of the company. The court also ordered sealing of the properties of all the convicts and barred them from holding any public office for 10 years under Section 15 of the National Accountability Ordnance, 1999.

According to the reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (Sindh), the Alliance Motors & T. J. Ibrahim Company had been charged with luring in investment to the tune of Rs3.57 billion from 50,000 people by promising them attractive profits.

However, the colleted money was distributed to relative and close friends of the accused, thereby, cheating the public at large and committing the offence of fraud as defined in Clauses (ix) (x) and (xii)of Section 9(a) punishable under Section 10 (a) of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

The defence counsel argued that the investors had signed an agreement with the company on a profit-and-loss sharing basis, and the company had provided profits to them for 10 years. But after that, as per the agreement, the company had not given any profit to its clients because it was running in loss.

The prosecution argued that the accused had cheated the public by collecting billions of rupees on the assurance of returning huge profits, but later the accused distributed the collected money to their own relatives and friends.

Accused Mohammad Tayyab and Mohammad Ibrahim were in jail custody. Hamid Ali Qureshi and Asghar Ali were arrested in Lahore. Asghar had died in jail while Hamid was released on bail.