A court in Nepal has convicted three former police chiefs of embezzling millions of dollars of public funds while procuring military hardware
KATHMANDU (TrustLaw) - A court in Nepal has convicted three former police chiefs of embezzling millions of dollars of public funds while procuring military hardware for the country’s U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan.
Nepal’s Special Court, which hears corruption cases, said that around $4 million was embezzled by the men, who were responsible for buying armoured personnel carriers (APCs) for Nepali peacekeepers in Sudan’s troubled region of Darfur.
A British businessman, who is director of a London-based security firm which sold the vehicles to the Nepali police, was also found guilty of embezzlement.
A bench of three judges on Monday sentenced each of the four men to two years in jail and imposed fines totalling $3.6 million, but cleared 31 other police officers who were accused of involvement in the high profile case.
Special Court Registrar Dhir Bahadur Chand said they were sentenced in absentia and had not been arrested.
"The three former police chiefs can appeal against the judgement to the Supreme Court within 35 days," Chandi told TrustLaw.
The retired police officers could not be reached for comment.
Nepal has 140 police officers serving as part of the 22,000-strong United Nations-African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) – deployed to stem years of violence in western Sudan between government forces and rebels.
The corruption incident came to light after the United Nations (U.N.) complained that vehicles sent by Nepal were sub-standard and unsafe.
A Nepali parliamentary team went to the troubled Darfur region in 2010 and confirmed the vehicles were unsafe. A probe was then established to examine the procurement process.
The investigation found that the vehicles bought in 2009 were old, poor quality and had parts missing and bought at much cheaper prices, with the remaining funds siphoned off.
The Nepali associate of the British man, was also given one year imprisonment, the verdict said.
Nepal is emerging from a decade-long civil conflict with Maoist rebels that killed 13,000 people and devastated the economy.
Last year, the country was ranked 154 out of 183 countries on Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) -- with the smallest ranking being the least corrupt.
(Editing by Nita Bhalla)
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