Judicial Remand of Ayyan Ali Extended

On Monday, a banking court extended the judicial remand of famous actress, singer and model Ayyan Ali till 28th May, 2015 in a money smuggling case. Sabir Sultan, the Banking Court Judge decided to extend the application of remand when the prosecution refused to argue over the bail application that had been filed during the previous hearing by the accused. The prosecution was ordered to prepare their arguments and the case was adjourned till May 28th. There was also a second application heard by the court, which was made by the customs’ investigation team for registering a fresh case of money laundering against the supermodel.

During the case proceedings, Khurram Latif Khosa, Ayyan’s lawyer, had asked the judged to give him permission for arguments over the bail applications submitted for his client. However, the prosecution weren’t willing to argue over the application as they said that they hadn’t prepared for it. Hence, the prosecution was directed to come fully prepared for the next hearing. Ayyan had been produced in the court amidst really tight security arrangements. Once the hearing of the supermodel had ended, Raja Hafeez attempted to meet Ayyan once again.

She flat out refused to meet her father, again and informed her lawyers that she had no interest in meeting a man who had abandoned her and her mother 5 years ago. When talking to the media, Raja Hafeez said that the police weren’t allowing him to meet his daughter. He said that the whole truth would be exposed once he was able to meet Ayyan. He further said that he didn’t have any enmity with anyone and he was also on good terms with Benazir Bhutto’s family, which weren’t restricted to just Asif Ali Zardari.

Wishing to remain anonymous, an official of the customs investigation team told the media people that a charge-sheet couldn’t be prepared against the accused because Ayyan’s mother, Farhat Sultana, and two businessmen hadn’t responded to any notices up till now and hadn’t appeared in from of the investigators for giving their statements. He also added that FBR had discovered that no taxes had been paid on the confiscated money. This was why an application had been submitted of registering another case against the supermodel.

Ayyan’s lawyer, Khurram Latif Khosa said that the money recovered on the airport didn’t belong to his client as she had been waiting at the lounge for handing the money to someone else. He told the media that she had given this statement whereas investigators had changed it later on. The lawyer also asserted that an interim-charge sheet had been submitted in the court last month by the investigators probing charges of money laundering against Ayyan. Two new suspects had been traced by the team who were linked with the model.

He said that these two suspects included a woman who had about RS. 300 million in her bank account and had purchased a luxury apartment for RS. 15 million last month. Ayyan Ali had been held by the Pakistan Customs team on March 14th at Benazir Bhutto International Airport.