Arrest warrants issued for Ayyan in customs inspector murder case

Customs inspector who would have been a key prosecution witness in the money laundering case was shot dead last year

A court in Rawalpindi issued arrest warrants for Ayyan on Thursday in connection with the killing of a customs inspector who would have been a key prosecution witness in the money laundering case against the supermodel, Express News reported.

The court ordered police to arrest the accused immediately. Warrants have also been issued for others accused in the case, including customs superintendent Zargham and Dr Haroon.

Customs Inspector Chaudhry Ejaz Mahmood was shot dead last year outside in house. Earlier, Mahmood's widow alleged that Ayyan was responsible for the murder of her husband and her name needed to be put on the Exit Control List. She further said that the police needed to investigate Ayyan in the murder case.



Inspector Mahmood was shot and injured by two unidentified men outside his house in the Waris Khan area on June 2 2015. He died two days later.

Mahmood was in charge of the PIA cargo air freight unit (AFU) state warehouse at Benazir Bhutto International Airport in 2015 and was the person that took official custody of the currency recovered from Ayyan in March 2015.

The inspector's wife told the police that Mahmood told her that he was under a lot of pressure due to his association with the high-profile case. She claimed that her husband told her that some men, who she could not identify, had been telling him to make false entries in the official record to protect Ayyan or weaken the case against her.

She said Mahmood had told her that the callers had threatened to kill him if he failed to follow their instructions.



Mahmood’s brother Chaudhry Riaz Afzal also recorded his statement before the police. He said that his brother was shot in the leg and that the doctors at Benazir Bhutto Hospital assured him that Mahmood was out of danger.

Later, he said, doctors took his brother to the operation theatre at the request of some customs officials. He said that he was informed that the operation had been successful and he just needed to arrange for blood.

He claimed that two days later, on June 4, doctors told him that his brother had died. He added that the Waris Khan police had initially written up the incident as an attempted robbery and registered murder case against two unidentified robbers.



He repeated his sister-in-law’s allegation that Ali and her unidentified accomplices were responsible for the death of the inspector.

In March 2015, customs officials arrested the supermodel at Islamabad airport, upon recovering $506,800 from her luggage. Ayyan later denied any role in money laundering. She was released from Adiala prison in Rawalpindi after spending almost four months in detention.