SHC grants bail to exporter in arms smuggling case

The Sindh High Court has granted bail to an exporter in an arms smuggling case. The applicant, Abdullah, was booked by the Customs authorities for illegally smuggling 1,464 pistols with a consignment of ceiling fans.

According to the prosecution, the Customs seized a consignment of 2,060 ceiling fans to be exported to Oman, in which 1,464 pistols of .30 bore and 9 mm worth Rs43,920,000 had been concealed.

The case was registered against the applicant, clearing agent and others under the offence of smuggling of prohibited goods. The investigation revealed that certain Yemeni nationals in Pakistan, in particular Amaar, Abdul Moeen and Faiz, purchased the ceiling fans from Gujrat and the pistols from various arms dealers in Peshawar, and then employed a network of persons to conceal the pistols in the ceiling fans to transport the goods to Karachi and file export documents for ceiling fans with the aim of smuggling the concealed pistols out of Pakistan.

The prosecution alleged that the applicant was the one who managed the last leg of the attempt to smuggle the pistols. The applicant’s counsel submitted that even if the facts narrated in the challan were to be believed, the case against the applicant was, in the very least, a case of further inquiry, and therefore he was entitled to bail.

A special prosecutor submitted that the investigation had established that it was the applicant who had facilitated the smuggling as the exporter while the ties between him and the Yemeni nationals were established, and the applicant had also travelled to Yemen and arranged stay for the Yemeni nationals in Pakistan.

He said the applicant received the goods in Karachi and supervised the warehousing pending export documents; and one of the Yemeni nationals arrested in the case had also stated that he was informed by his partners that the applicant had knowledge of the concealed pistols.

A single bench of the high court headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry after hearing the arguments of the counsel observed that assuming that it was the applicant who was running the business and that he facilitated the Yemeni nationals in making export arrangements from Pakistan, that ipso facto did not establish that he had knowledge of the pistols concealed inside the ceiling fans.

The SHC observed that admittedly the applicant was not the purchaser of the ceiling fans or the pistols. The bench observed that it may well be that the applicant was merely facilitating the Yemeni nationals in exporting ceiling fans and providing services to procure legitimate export business.

The high court observed that the statement of the arrested Yemeni national that he was informed that the applicant had knowledge of the concealed pistols, if not heresy, was the statement of a co-accused person in custody, and therefore it did not have the evidentiary value at this stage.

The SHC observed that the question whether the applicant had knowledge that the ceiling fans were only a facade to smuggle arms out of Pakistan, required evidence and the case against the applicant was one of further inquiry into his alleged guilt, falling with the ambit of the Sub-Section (2) of the Section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The high court granted bail to the applicant subject to furnishing solvent surety in the sum of Rs1 million along with P.R. Bond in an amount to the satisfaction of the trial court.