SENTENCING of the former Central Bank (CBSI) officer will be made as soon as the defence and prosecution sort out a legal issue.
Philip Bobongi stole more than $1.7 million of muted notes from CBSI when he served there.
Sentencing submissions and mitigation on this case were made in court, Wednesday.
Justice Leonard Maina however reserved the sentence to allow the prosecution and the defence counsel to sort out a legal issue that has arisen.
Philip Bobongi was found guilty after a trial of two counts of larceny and embezzlement and 35 counts of money laundering.
The 44-year-old man from Guadalcanal had been tried in a hearing last year that saw a total of 13 prosecution witnesses testifying in court.
The accused in his defence gave an unsworn statement in which he denied all the allegations.
The court however found Bobongi guilty of stealing the muted notes from the Central bank between 2007 and 2009 when the bank was in the process of destroying them.
He then deposited certain amounts into his Bank of South Pacific (BSP) and Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) accounts and that of his wife’s, at different times.
Bobongi used part of the money to pay for properties and $200,000 of the muted notes was found in his brief case when police searched his house.
Wayne Ghemu and Valenitabua of Public Solicitor’s Office represent Bobongi while Crown Prosecutor Maito’o Hauirae and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Ronald Bei Talasasa appeared for the Crown.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
