The Criminal Court has sentenced Hassan Waheed, the former Deputy Country Manager of the Bank of Ceylon (BOC), to over three years in prison for stealing $150,000 from a customer's account.
The state filed two charges against Hassan Waheed: forgery of a document for creating a fraudulent transfer request, and theft for the unlawful misappropriation of another person's property.
Hassan Waheed stole $150,000 from a BOC customer in 2019. In a separate suspicious incident, the same customer had previously lost an additional $110,000 from their account.
The court decided to increase the severity of the offence based on the evidence presented and the fact that the defendant had shown no good-faith effort to repay the stolen funds.
Although the case against Hassan Waheed was first submitted to the court in 2019, it was not scheduled for a hearing until 2024. Consequently, the presiding judge reduced his sentence by two degrees, citing a violation of his right to a speedy trial.
Two years of his prison sentence were commuted to a fine. The state did not object to this conversion of the penalty.
On Thursday, the court ruled that both charges against him had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. He was sentenced to six months in prison for forgery and two years, nine months, and 11 days for theft.
