RAWALPINDI: A Customs court Wednesday rejected model Ayyan Ali’s request to cancel her arrest warrants and asked her to appear before the court in the next hearing, scheduled for July 29.
Ali is involved in a currency smuggling case and had went abroad following a decision by the Supreme Court to remove her name from the exit control list (ECL).
Ali’s counsel, Latif Khosa, had assured the court that she will be present for the next hearing. Due to the absence of Justice Shiraz Kiyani, banking court Judge Raja Ghazanfar was hearing the case as the duty judge.
In the previous hearing of the case, the court had been informed that arrest warrants had been delivered to Ali’s Karachi residence, yet no arrests had been made.
Justice Kiyani had also noted that the last time Ali had appeared in court was Dec 17, 2016, and that she had been granted 12 leaves of absence. He had added that although the Supreme Court had allowed her to travel abroad, she had not been exempted from appearing in trial court.
Latif Khosa, on Wednesday, stated that his client could not appear in court owing to her travels abroad. He also requested the court to cancel the arrest warrants issued against her name.
Justice Ghazanfar, however, held that since he was only hearing the case as the duty judge, he could not cancel arrest warrants. Only a trial court can decide whether to cancel the warrants, he added. He set July 29 for the next hearing of the case.
Speaking to media outside the court, Khosa said his client could be present for the next hearing of the case but the Lahore High Court (LHC) has also been reached for the case’s dismissal, which will no longer require her to appear before the court.
A customs court in Nov 2015 had indicted Ayyan for attempting to smuggle more than half a million dollars in cash out of the country, to which she has pleaded not guilty.
The model had been arrested on March 14, 2015 on charges of money laundering after customs officials recovered $506,000 from her luggage at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport before she could board a flight to Dubai.
The case against the model took a political turn when the airport entry pass of the personal assistant to a former president was cancelled for allegedly trying to facilitate Ayyan’s suspected attempt to smuggle money.
