KARACHI: Supermodel Ayyan Ali may have to wait for some more time to leave the country, as a judgement on her plea against bar on her foreign travel by a two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court was referred to the chief justice over the judges’ opposite notes.

The bench headed by Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh referred the verdict to the chief justice for appointing referee judge for the disposal of the case, as one of the judges approved the model’s plea, while the other rejected it.

The interior ministry on a court direction wrote off her name from the Exit Control List (ECL) but her name was again included in the list just a few hours later.

The model later filed a contempt of court application against the federal government for not allowing her to travel abroad despite the court direction to the authorities to strike her name off the ECL. She had approached the court initially in December requesting the removal of her name from the ECL. Her counsel maintained that having her name on the ECL was illegal, as the authorities had returned her passport.

During a hearing of her case last year, the model said she was required to travel abroad for professional assignments and medical treatment, and since she had been released from jail on bail, her name should be struck off the ECL.

She said the authorities’ decision to disallow her from travelling abroad was a violation of her fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 18 of the Constitution. A customs court in November 2015 indicted the model for attempting to smuggle more than half a million dollars in cash out of the country, to which she pleaded not guilty.

The model was arrested on March 14, 2015, on charges of money laundering after the customs officials recovered $506,000 from her luggage at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport before she could reportedly board a flight to Dubai.

She was granted bail in July last year after spending around four months in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail - and after her judicial remand was extended at least 16 times.

The case involving Ayyan, a well-known face who has endorsed prominent brands, garnered unprecedented media attention due to her celebrity status and the controversies surrounding it. The case took a political turn when the airport entry pass of the personal assistant to a former president was cancelled for allegedly trying to facilitate her suspected attempt to smuggle money.

Later in June, a customs official who was allegedly investigating the money laundering case against the model was shot dead.

The model was granted a category B ‘VIP’ inmate at Adiala that entitled her to several privileges not available to other inmates, because she was “not habitual of a less-than-comfortable lifestyle”.

Her counsel, Sardar Latif Khosa, earlier said his client had been arrested on false charges of money laundering. He claimed that the Customs Act lacked interpretation of attempted money laundering and that the petitioner had not been allowed to record her statement after the arrest, which was mandatory under Section 139 of the act.

During initial investigation, the counsel said, she claimed that she had acquired the money by selling property. She carried the money to the airport to hand it over to her brother who was arriving from Dubai the same day, said Mr Khosa.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2016