Lahore: A Pakistani court has granted bail to a French national who was allegedly involved in duping people by masquerading as an official of his country`s embassy.
Bail was granted to Phillipe Jean-Marie by a judicial magistrate here yesterday in a case registered at Gulberg police station for the issuing of a cheque for Rs 1.07 million that was not honoured by the concerned bank.
Expatriate Pakistani Nauman Rasheed had given Rs 2.5 million to Jean-Marie for obtaining French visas for his children.
On his failure to honour the commitment, Jean-Marie gave two cheques to Rasheed to return the amount.
Rasheed later lodged two FIRs against Jean-Marie at separate police stations of Lahore and complained that the cheques for Rs 1.07 million and Rs 1.43 million had been dishonoured.
The FIRs were lodged on June 20, when the French national was already in the custody of police in connection with a case of liquor smuggling.
Police arrested Jean-Marie with 100 bottles of liquor in Lahore Cantonment on June 19.
Later, he was handed over to Gulberg police station to obtain his physical remand in connection with the case filed by Rasheed.
The Frenchman was sent to jail on judicial remand when he confessed to his guilt before magistrate Qadeer Hussain Butt.
Jean-Marie engaged Lahore Bar Association president Shahzad Hassan Sheikh and filed a bail petition. Rasheed filed an application before a sessions judge and requested him to transfer the bail case to some other court because he had serious reservations about magistrate Butt.
However, the sessions judge dismissed the application. Interestingly, magistrate Butt himself refused to hear the bail petition and referred the case to the sessions judge.
The matter was later marked to Judicial Magistrate Sahir Islam, who had heard CIA contractor Raymond Davis` case.
The magistrate took up the matter yesterday and granted bail to Jean-Marie.
PTI
