BANGUI (AFP) -- The former president of the Central African Republic Ange-Felix Patasse was sentenced in his absence to 20 years' hard labour on fraud charges.

Patasse, who has lived in exile in the capital of Togo, Lome, since being overthrown in a March 2003 military coup by current President Francois Bozize, was tried with his former finance minister Lazare Doukoula and three former advisers.

The fraud charges were heard separately from accusations of embezzlement on a massive scale.

The court found Patasse and his former adviser Luis Sanchez guilty on the fraud changes and fined them six million CFA francs ($11,715, 9,100 euros) in addition to imposing the jail terms.

They were also ordered to pay seven billion CFA francs ($13.6 million, 10.7 million euros) in damages to the state.

The court also "accepted" that Patasse and another adviser Michel Banguet-Tandet were guilty of embezzlement but ruled that the case had been inadequately prepared and gave it to an investigating magistrate with orders to draw it up within two months.

It ordered that Doukoula's property and assets be confiscated, fined him 15 million CFA francs and ordered him to pay two million CFA francs in damages to the state.

Patasse, Sanchez and Doukoula were stripped of their civil rights.

The trial of the third adviser, Simon Kouloumba, the only defendant present in the country, was put off until September.

It took the court 30 minutes to reach its verdicts after the reading of the charges had lasted several hours.

Patasse and his entourage have been accused of embezzling at least 70 billion CFA francs ( $136 million, 106 million euros) from the state's coffers.

In Lome, Patasse told AFP that he did not accept the competence of the court, arguing that as a legitimate and legal president he could only be tried in the state's High Court on treason charges.