Four former senior officials of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing of Afghanistan were jailed and fined over the embezzlement of more than one billion Afghanis while they were serving in the ministry.

The ex-officials, apart from one missing, were tried by the Appellate court of the special tribunal, Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Justice Center today.

According to the verdict of the appellate court, Ahmad Nawaz was jailed for seven years on misuse of authority in at least six stances along with Mohammad Yaqoob with a total fine of 44,360,442 Afghanis.

The verdict against Mohammad Yaqoob was announced in his absence as he still missing since the arrest warrants of the four officials were issued over the embezzlement of the state funds.

The court also announced jail terms 20 years for each of the two convicts, Amin Qani and Syed Aman, on charges of misuse of authority and embezzlement in at least 24 stances.

The two former senior officials were also awarded a total fine of 56,822,720 Afghanis.

This comes as the primary court of the special tribunal had jailed the four Afghan officials for 20 and 7 years each and a total fine of 1.86 billion Afghanis on charges of embezzlement during the preliminary court hearing late in March this year.

According to the court hearing, Mohammad Aminullah Qani, Head of Apartments Cohesion and Syed Aman Sadat, Manager Finance Apartments Cohesion were jailed for 20 years each on charges of the embezzlement and misuse of the authority.

The two former officials of the Ministry of the Urban Development and Housing were also fined 150 million Afghanis each.

The two other officials, Ahmad Nawaz Bakhtyar, Director of Housing Enterprise and Mohammad Yaqub Ibrahimi, the Deputy Director for Housing Enterprise, were jailed for seven years each.

The special tribunal also awarded a fine of 443 million for each of the former officials on charges of the embezzlement and misuse of the authority.