ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi bench, on Tuesday dismissed the post-arrest bail application of supermodel Ayyan Ali in the money laundering case.
After hearing the arguments of Sardar Mohammad Ishaq, the counsel for Ayyan, and public prosecutor Farhat Nawaz Lodhi, Justice Mehmood Maqbool Bajwa reserved the judgment and announced it after 5pm.
The public prosecutor adopted before the court that the supermodel was facing an offence in which she can get up to 14 years of imprisonment besides a fine of multi-million rupees. He said the investigation team had recovered two mobile phone sets from the custody of Ayyan but could not retrieve any data because they were locked with codes. The investigations showed that during the last a few months the supermodel had traveled abroad for more than 40 times.
The counsel for Ayyan, however, told the court that it was the job of the investigators to decode the mobile phones. He said his client belonged to showbiz so her travel abroad and return was a routine matter.
He claimed that courts had granted bails to women in heinous cases such as murder and drug smuggling. “Since the offence for which the supermodel has been booked does not fall in the category of heinous crime, she might be released on bail.” The supermodel has been kept in the barracks where women caught in heinous crimes are detained, he added.
The 21-year-old Karachi-based model was arrested at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport on March 14 for trying to smuggle 506,800 dollars to Dubai.
Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015
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