Tolo11/23/2012By Jawid Zeyaratjaei[Printer Friendly Version] A man in western Herat province has been sentenced to three years jail for attempting to smuggle almost US$1million to Iran, officials said Thursday. The Herat Primary Court also ruled on Wednesday that the man should pay a fine of $900,000 – the amount confiscated from him – and it should be paid into the state treasury. Herat resident Faiz Ahmad was captured a few months ago carrying US$900,000 in cash at a border crossing with Iran. He is said to have admitted that the money was his and he was trying to transfer it out of the country. "After investigating this case, he is sentenced to three years of serving in prison and penalized a US$900,000 cash fine," said the Herat primary court judge Ghulam Rasoul Mansour. Under Afghan law, it is illegal to transfer cash of more than 1 million Afghanis or its equivalent in a foreign currency to another country. It is first time in at least a year that a money smuggler has been sentenced to prison in Herat. Judicial institutions say that several other cases are under investigation. The Herat Primary Court also sentenced a man to three years imprisonment for robbing valuable stones from the shrine of Gawhar Shad Begum's dome. "This man was charged for the robbery of rocks and the court sentences him to three years jail," Mansour ruled.
