MUSCAT: An Omani court has sentenced a former minister to three years in jail over graft charges, in a first for the Gulf sultanate which has vowed to combat corruption, newspapers reported yesterday.
They said ex-commerce minister Mohammed bin Nasser Al Khusaibi was found guilty of bribing another official to award a contract linked to a Muscat airport expansion project to a company in which he was a shareholder.
The Muscat court on Sunday also slapped Khusaibi with a hefty 800,000-riyal ($2m) fine, the Oman Daily Observer said. An accomplice, a former undersecretary at the transport and telecommunications ministry, was handed the same jail term and fined.
The general manager of the company, a non-Omani Arab national, was sentenced to six months in jail, to be followed by deportation.
The Observer said a former refinery CEO who is also a member of Oman’s upper chamber had been sentenced to three years in jail for corruption in an earlier trial. But Khusaibi was the first former government member to be handed a jail term.
AFP
