Bangladesh Former Chief Justice 70-year-old Surendrakumar Sinha has been sentenced in absentia to 11 years in jail for corruption.

Sinha headed the Supreme Court in 2017 that parliament could not sack judges, a move hailed by lawyers as safeguarding judicial independence. Sinha left Bangladesh in late 2017, alleging he had been forced to step aside following the landmark ruling. He lives in North America where he has reportedly sought asylum.

A court in the capital Dhaka found Sinha guilty of laundering approximately $471,000 in connivance with the officials of a private bank. Ten more people were indicted in the case, eight of whom have been convicted and handed down varying punishments.

Judge Shaikh Nazmul Alam of Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka delivered Tuesday’s verdict, ordering Sinha to serve seven years in jail for laundering money and four years for breach of trust.

Sinha was the first Hindu Chief Justice in the officially secular Muslim-majority nation of 169 million.

He later wrote a book, titled – A Broken Dream: Rule of Law, Human Rights, and Democracy – in which he claimed he had been forced to resign and flee after being threatened by a military security agency.