Czech woman convicted of drug smuggling released from Pakistani prison

Czech citizen Tereza Hlůšková, 25, was released from a Pakistani prison on Saturday after charges against her were nullified. The Czech Embassy in the country will help her return to the Czech Republic, the Foreign Ministry has tweeted.

Hlůšková had been imprisoned since 2019 after being convicted of drug trafficking, but the charges against her were cancelled this month.

As Hlůšková's family does not want the public to be informed about her return to the Czech Republic, the ministry declined to give further details.

In March of 2019, Hlůšková was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison and a fine of about 18,000 crowns.

She appealed the verdict in April, arguing that the it was "contrary to the facts" of the case and was not supported by any concrete evidence. The court found her arguments justified and have acquitted her of the charges, according to her defense counsel.

On Friday, the Czech Foreign Ministry announced that a Lahore court drafted the written acquittal, which means the final formal step in her acquittal had been completed.

Hlůšková has claimed since the beginning of her case that she arrived in Pakistan as a model and that someone had planted the drugs into her luggage without her knowledge.

The Pakistani news server UrduPoint previously reported that the drugs recovered from her luggage had a street value equivalent to 19.5 million Czech crowns.