Papua New Guinea's National Court has sentenced the former head of the National Provident Fund, Jimmy Maladina, to a suspended sentence of eight years, with a two-year good behaviour bond.
Maladina was convicted in May for misappropriating close to one million US dollars while chairman of the NPF in the late 1990s.
The newspaper, The National, reports that in his 28-page ruling, Deputy Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika said that the suspended jail term was because Maladina had repaid the money taken.
He also took into account the long delay in having the case tried, which denied Maladina's constitutional right to a trial within a reasonable time, as well as the fact that his co-conspirators were never charged.
Sir Gibbs says his conviction means that Maladina will never be able to practice law again, and will suffer in that he will have to find other ways to survive.
