RAWALPINDI: A special customs court on Saturday issued non-bailable arrest warrants for model Ayyan Ali in a currency smuggling case.
Customs Court Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta presided over the hearing of the currency smuggling case and issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the model as she failed to appear for the trial once again.
The accused model’s lawyer requested the court that she be exempted from the hearing as she was unwell.
However, Judge Bhutta said a new medical certificate had not be presented and demanded that the model be presented before the court. “We cannot grant such a long exemption on the basis of old medical certificates,” the judge upheld.
To this, customs prosecutor Amin Feroz said, “They make excuses during each hearing and waste the court’s time. It has been a while since she last appeared for a hearing and they are deliberately not presenting her.” The customs prosecutor then requested that the court issue non-bailable arrest warrants for the model.
Accepting the customs prosecutor’s request, the court issued issue non-bailable arrest warrants for Ayyan. The hearing of the case was then adjourned till October 22.
Ayyan was arrested on March 14, 2015 from the Islamabad airport on charges of money laundering after customs officials recovered $506,000 from her luggage while she was en route to Dubai.
The customs court indicted Ayyan in November 2015 for attempting to smuggle over half a million dollars in cash out of the country, to which she pleaded not guilty. She was granted bail in July, 2016 after spending around four months in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.
Later, she was also nominated in a case relating to a customs official’s murder, who was killed in mysterious circumstances in June 2015 while he was reportedly investigating the money laundering case against the model.
It was on this basis that the model was placed on the Exit Control List by the interior ministry, however the courts struck down the ban and allowed Ayyan to travel abroad.
