KARACHI: The Special Court of Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling on Tuesday granted post-arrest bail to a suspect in a currency smuggling case.
Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi directed suspect Kamran Khan to deposit surety bond of Rs 500, 000.
According to the prosecution, Airport Security Force (ASF) caught Khan with 179,000 Dirham at the Jinnah International Airport in August 2015. The accused was about to fly to Dubai with huge sum of money without declaring it. Subsequently, the accused was taken into custody and an FIR was registered against him under the customs laws.
Advocate Ismat Mehdi, who represented the accused, moved bail application, stating that ASF did not adopt the legal procedure for search of alleged smuggler as ASF did not search him before the gazetted officer of customs. She cited a number of cases in which, she said, the high court either granted bail or acquitted accused on the ground that the search was not conducted before gazetted officer.
She said that charge-sheet had already been submitted in the case, and the accused is behind bars for 25 days. The custody of the accused is serving no useful purpose she said while requesting the court to order his release on bail.
