Pak model charged with cash smuggling freed

A Pakistani supermodel who has been in jail since March after being arrested for trying to fly to Dubai with half a million dollars in her luggage was freed today, two days after obtaining bail from a high court.
Ayyan Ali, 21, was released from the high-security Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi where she was forced to spend two days despite obtaining bail from the Lahore High Court on July 14.
The documents for her release were issued early today.
Ali's counsel, Khurram Latif Khosa, told Dawn News that the LHC ordered the judge of the trial court and district and sessions judge of Rawalpindi to issue the release order.

Ali was nabbed by customs officials on March 14 from Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad when she was trying to board a UAE flight with over USD 500,000.
Under Pakistani laws, a passenger with more than USD 10,000 should declare the money to custom authorities.

Ali, whose pale grey eyes have stared out of innumerable ads in Pakistan, has got huge media attention during her more- than-a-dozen court appearances.
Several rumours and stories were spun out during the four months period she spent in the jail. But it was not clearly known whether she owned the money or was trying to smuggle it on the behalf of some "influential politician".

Zulfiqar Mirza, an estranged leader of Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had alleged that the model was linked with party chief and former president Asif Ali Zardari, which was denied by the PPP.
Interestingly, Ali's lawyer Khosa too is a senior PPP leader and has also served as Governor of Punjab when Zardari was President.
There were also reports that Ali was part of a group involved in smuggling foreign currency out of Pakistan to launder it as the same money was sent back as remittances, considered legally earned.