2 weeks Ago By ANDREW NAIDU
A JAILED former civil servant who was given a non-parole period of 22 years has had this reduced to 20 years by the Supreme Court yesterday. Former acting deputy official receiver Viliame Katia was initially found guilty of corrupt practices that resulted in the loss of $4.1m to the Office of the Receiver’s bankruptcy and liquidation accounts, and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by Suva magistrate Shageeth Somaratne in 2017.
He was convicted of 11 counts of corrupt-related matters, three of abuse of office for gain, four of forgery, one of embezzlement, one of giving false information to a public servant, one of unauthorised modification of data and a count of obtaining financial advantage. However, Katia was re-sentenced to 23 years with a non-parole period of 22 years by acting Chief Justice Salesi Temo after a successful appeal by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2018. He then appealed against sentence in the Supreme Court which was called for a hearing on August 16.
“Although there has been no restitution of the embezzled funds, the petitioner (Katia) is still a relatively a young man and it is hoped that redemption will ultimately be possible and that he will emerge from serving his time to prove that he can be a useful law-abiding citizen,” stated Justices Anthony Gates, Dame Lowell Patricia Goddard, and Alipate Qetaki in their ruling..
