Faisal Maina, son of former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Taskforce Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.
Faisal was convicted by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday.
Daily Post reports that Justice Okon Abang in his judgment, found Faisal guilty on a three-count money laundering charge.
The charges were preferred against Faisal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who is being prosecuted along with his father.
Additional reports by PREMIUM TIMES reveals that he was found guilty on all the three counts of money laundering involving N58.1 million in public funds.
Faisal, whose father is also facing separate set of money laundering charges involving N2billon before the same judge, jumped bail and stopped attending court since last year.
The judge, who revoked the defendant’s bail and ordered his arrest to no avail, ordered the trial to proceed in his absence.
Faisal was absent from court when the judge read the judgement convicting him on all the three counts and sentencing him on Thursday.
The judge jailed him for 14 years on count 2 and for five years on each of counts 1 and 3.
The sentences are to run concurrently, implying that the convict who is believed to have fled from Nigeria, would spend 14 years which is the longest jail terms imposed by the judge in prison.
Mr Abang said the agency proved beyond reasonable doubt that Faisal operated a fictitious bank account with the United Bank for Africa (UBA), through which his father, Mr Maina, laundered the sum of N58.1million.
The court noted that the funds deposited into the account that was operated in the name of Alhaji Faisal Farm 2 were sequentially withdrawn by the convict and his father, between October 2013 and June 2019, the report says.
In addition, the court ordered that the 21-year-old Faisal, who had since June 24, 2020, been declared a fugitive after jumping bail, should be arrested anywhere he is found in Nigeria and remanded in any correctional service center to serve his jail term.
