Thirty-one residents of Oman, including top government officials were handed jail terms on Wednesday by the Criminal Court on bribery charges.
Described as the electricity fraud case, the trial started last June but was not made public until Wednesday, when the court, chaired by Shaikh Mahmoud Al Rashdi, handed various prison terms and fines to those charged.
The Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Housing, Electricity and Water, Abdullah Bin Ali Dawood, was handed a 17-year-prison term and was ordered to pay 70,000 riyals (Dh667,942) in fines.
Abdullah Bin Ali, who was also expelled from his job, was found guilty of accepting bribes, misusing job status and cancelling a 2.5-million-riyal fine against the Oman National Electricity Company and an Irish company on the account of a breakdown suffered by a generator at the Al Rusayl area in Muscat.
Before the trial began in June this year, a senior Indian manager of the Oman National Electricity Company managed to flee, prompting the court to order the arrest of all the suspects and seize their passports, says a report in government-owned Arabic daily Oman.
Hussain Bin Mohammad Bin Ali, a former ambassador of Oman to the United Kingdom, was convicted of forgery and misusing job status along with Mohammad Ridha Bin Hassan Al Abduwani, Saleh Bin Hamoud Al Rashdi and Egyptian national Mohammad Rahmi Mohammad Rashad.
The corruption case investigation was triggered by a report by the International Auditing Bureau, which had discovered some passing violations by the company.
The bureau sent the list of violations to the Capital Market Authority, which forwarded the case to the Royal Oman Police.
Yunis Bin Ali Al Balushi as well as Mahmoud Munawer Ali were convicted of accepting bribes, and being involved in defalcation, forgery, misuse of job position and divulging professional secrets.
Each were handed a composite imprisonment of eight years and four months, RO20,000 in fine and were expelled from their jobs.
Indian national R. Kumarsami was convicted of accepting bribes and misusing job status and was handed a five-year prison term and ordered to pay RO20,000 besides being expelled from his job.
The ONEC General Manager for over three decades, Mirza Othman Baig, a Pakistani and other company employees, Sadavan Pillai, Koriath Mohnana Kumar and Sunil Kumar Singh, were found guilty of offering bribes and misusing confidence.
They were each sentenced to five-year prison terms and ordered to pay RO20,000 as fine.
Asians Islamallah Abdul Rashid, Mohammad Ali Abdul Munim, Beni Jacob, Sayed Mohammad Alamgeer, Ranjit Nair, G. G. Sivarama Pillai were convicted of being associates of the suspects and they were each handed 20- month terms.
The court also ordered the deportation of all expatriate convicts and charging them with court fees.
