Afghan court jails 2 senior officials of collapsed Afghan bank for 15 years in $1B scandal

KABUL, Afghanistan – A Kabul court has sentenced two senior officials of an Afghan bank that collapsed beneath almost $1 billion in debt to 15 years prison each for embezzlement and fraud.

The Kabul Bank's former chairman Sherkhan Farnood and former chief executive officer Khalillulah Ferozi were sentenced live on television Tuesday, after a two-day appeal against earlier lower sentences.

Farnood was also fined more than $237 million.

The scandal shook confidence in Afghanistan's tiny banking sector, and the loss accounted for around 5 percent of the country's economy. It also involved relatives of the former president Hamid Karzai and one of his deputies, Marshall Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

The government bailed out the bank with $825 million, and brought in receivers who have traced most of the missing funds, officials say.