PESHAWAR: An accountability court here on Thursday convicted a female former pension payment clerk of the Peshawar General Post Office (GPO) of possessing illegal assets and sentenced her to 14-year imprisonment with a fine of Rs14 million.

Judge Asim Imam ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused Nuzhat Begum and the evidence on record proved her involvement in the commission of the offence.

The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had filed a reference against the clerk accusing her of possessing assets worth millions of rupees which were disproportionate to her known sources of income.

In the same case, she was earlier convicted by the accountability court in 2008 and sentenced to seven-year imprisonment.

However, the Peshawar High Court had reduced her prison term and fine against which NAB had moved the Supreme Court. The apex court had remanded her case back to the trial court.

A NAB prosecutor, Hasnain Tariq, contended that the accused could not provide any evidence to show that the properties owned by her were acquired through legal means. The convict has already been in the prison as she was recently convicted in two other references of embezzlement in payment of pension. On March 31 the AC had sentenced her in those cases to six years imprisonment.—Bureau Report