The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday approved acquittal of a Czech model jailed in 2019 for smuggling heroin from Pakistan to Abu Dhabi.
A sessions court in March 2019 had sentenced the Czech model, Tereza Hluskova to eight years and eight months in prison.
Later that year, in April she challenged her conviction in the case. She insisted that someone else had placed the drugs in her suitcase, without her knowing.
The case was pleaded on the basis that the court has given the conviction without basing on merits, and there is a lack of concrete evidence against the accused.
The plea was further based on the argument that the charges were placed on the appellant basing on a concocted story of the prosecution, while the facts of the case were ignored. In light of the argument, the appellant prayed to the court to set aside the conviction and acquit her of the charges.
During today’s hearing, Hluskova’s lawyer Saiful Malook argued that it could not be proven that the supposed narcotics were safely transported to the laboratory for testing.
He further added that the investigation failed to provide details about who transported the samples to the lab, therefore there remained the possibility that they were exchanged or forged.
After listening to the arguments, the court ended up in acquitting Hluskova.
The sessions court had also acquitted a co-suspect, Shoaib, for lack of evidence.
Following the acquittal, the Czech foreign ministry stated that Hluskova’s release should follow “within days after the verdict is processed”.
It is pertinent to note that on January 10, 2018, custom officials had apprehended the model after recovering nine kilogrammes of heroin hidden in her luggage.
