KARACHI, Dec 24: An accountability court on Monday sentenced a co-accused in a case pertaining to Alliance Motors and T.J. Ibrahim Company to four years in prison for depriving its investors of billions of rupees.

Judge Sadiq Hussain Bhatti of the accountability court-II pronounced the verdict after hearing final arguments from both sides.

According to the verdict, the prosecution had successfully proven the case against the accused.

The court also imposed a Rs4 million fine on the accused, Tufail Ahmed Qureshi, and barred him from holding any public office for 10 years under Section 15 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999. The accused will have to face an additional one year in case of failure to pay the fine.

According to the reference (No 8-H/2002) filed by the National Accountability Bureau (Sindh), the accused along with the directors of the Alliance Motors and T. J. Ibrahim Company had collected Rs3.57 billion from around 48,000 depositors and investors promising them attractive profits.

However, the collected money was distributed to the relatives and close friends of the accused, thereby, the accused cheated the public at large, and committed the offence of fraud as defined in clause (ix) (x) and (xii)of Section 9(a) punishable under Section 10 (a) of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999. The accused was arrested in 2003 and sent to jail, since then he was in jail.