TWO senior officials of the Kabul Bank that collapsed under almost £630 million in debt were sentenced in a Kabul court today to 15 years’ prison each for embezzlement and fraud.

The scandal in 2010 shook confidence in Afghanistan’s tiny banking sector and the loss accounted for 5 per cent of the country’s economy, making it the biggest banking collapse in history.

It struck at the heart of the political establishment, involving relatives of former president Hamid Karzai and one of his deputies, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

President Ashraf Ghani has put the case at the centre of his anti-corruption campaign and, within days of taking office in September, he ordered it resolved within 45 days.

Former bank chairman Sherkhan Farnood and chief executive Khalillulah Ferozi were sentenced live on television after appealing against earlier sentences of five years.

The bank was, until its collapse, responsible for paying the salaries of government employees, soldiers and police across the country.