Pindi court releases Chinese ‘trafficker’ on bail

Alleged trafficking victim says suspect is her husband

RAWALPINDI: A Rawalpindi court on Wednesday approved the bail of a Chinese man, who had been arrested by immigration authorities for suspected human smuggling after the woman he was accused of attempting to traffic out of the country appeared before the court and claimed was her husband.

Dong Jing Lee was presented before a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) special magistrate Rizwan Ahmed Sheikh on Wednesday.

Young Pakistani woman Silvia Shamoon, who Dong was accused of trafficking out of the country, also appeared before the court. She said that she had married Dong of her own free will on December 4, 2018, and wanted to live with him.  She contended that the case registered against Dong of trafficking her to China by the FIA was fictitious.

The suspect’s counsel Syed Yasir Hussain Shah Tirmizi also appeared before the court along with an official from the Chinese Embassy. He asserted that the FIA had filed a false case against Dong. He added that Shamoon had legally married Dong and that their marriage certificate was registered in Sargodha and records can be obtained from the official registrar there.

Shamoon’s counsel Farhat Chaudhry also confirmed that the applicant and the suspect were married and that the 19-year-old wants to live with her 28-year-old husband.

At this, the court approved bail for the Chinese suspect and set a bail bond of Rs50,000. The bail was instantly paid while an application to dismiss the case was also filed.

While talking to Daily Express, Shamoon said that she said that she will live with her husband and will travel between China and Pakistan with him. Later on Wednesday evening, the Chinese suspect was released from Adiala jail and was shifted to Islamabad along with his wife.

Shamoon and Dong were offloaded from a China-bound flight at the Islamabad International Airport (IIA) by FIA officers on February 20, after Shamoon allegedly told officers during routine checking that she was being trafficked. Shamoon allegedly told officers that her parents had allegedly sold her to a Chinese man for Rs400,000. After that, her travel documents had allegedly been snatched.

She had allegedly expressed the fear that the man may sell her to clients once in China.

Shamoon had further told officers that her parents had previously attempted to sell her to an Arab man in Qatar but law enforcers there had found out and had deported her to Pakistan. At this, the FIA stopped the two from boarding the flight and travelling out of the country and handed them over to their human smuggling cell in Islamabad for further investigations. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2019.