Czech model jailed for smuggling drugs
A Lahore court on Wednesday sentenced to eight years and eight months in jail a Czech woman arrested last year on charges of atempting to smuggle heroin from Pakistan to a foreign country.
The co-accused in the case, Shoaib Hafeez Khan, was acquited due to reasonable doubt surrounding his role in the smuggling bid.
The trial in the case had been completed on January 9 and the Additional Sessions Judge Shahzad Raza issued the verdict against 21-yearold Tereza Hluskova on Wednesday.
Her lawyer, Sardar Asghar Dogar, says she will appeal.
Hluskova was convicted during a court appearance last week. Her sentence also includes an $800 fine.
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 abroad. Czech diplomats had provided her legal assistance.
Pakistani authorities oten make arrests of both Pakistanis and foreigners for transporting narcotics.
Over the course of her trial, nine witnesses recorded their statements against the accused.
Earlier this year, in January, a foreign PHD student was taken into custody by customs staff ater narcotics were found in his luggage during check-in at the new Islamabad International Airport.
Customs staff recovered 325 grammes 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.
In an unrelated development, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday posted on Twiter interview of the widow of Naeem Rashid, the Pakistani hero who lost his life while trying to stop a terrorist from killing worshippers at a mosque in Christchurch in New Zealand. Naeem Rashid’s teenage son Talha Naeem also lost his life in the assault.
The prime minister sent out two tweets which accompanied the interview of the widow conducted by an English language channel as the families buried their dead days ater the tragedy shook the world.