A Lahore Sessions Court on Wednesday sentenced a Czech woman arrested last year on charges of attempting to smuggle heroin from Pakistan to Abu Dhabi to eight years and eight months in jail.

The trial in the case had been completed on January 9; today, Additional Sessions Judge Shahzad Raza issued the verdict against 21-year-old Tereza Hluskova.

Since her arrest on January 10, 2018 Hluskova has told investigators that she came to Pakistan to work as a model, but someone put eight and a half kilogrammes of narcotics into her luggage as she was returning.

She was arrested as she tried to board a flight for Abu Dhabi.

Czech diplomats had provided her legal assistance.

Pakistani authorities often make arrests of both Pakistanis and foreigners for transporting narcotics.

Over the course of her trial, nine witnesses had recorded their statements against the accused.

Earlier this year, in January, a foreign PhD student was taken into custody by customs staff after narcotics were found in his luggage during check-in at the new Islamabad International Airport.

Customs staff recovered 325 grams of cocaine disguised as sweets and arrested the student Ifenaye Junior Aloja, who is a PhD student in a private university of Islamabad. He was moved to Customs Headquarters for legal proceedings.