Czech model Tereza Hluskova, who was sentenced to 8 years in prison in Pakistan for attempting to smuggle heroin, has opened up about her experience saying she was “locked up like an animal”.
Arrested in January 2018 in possession of 19 lbs (8.5kg) of heroin at Lahore’s AIIama IqbaI International airport, Hluskova, who was then 22, had been heading to Ireland via Dubai.
Seized by customs officials, Hluskova said that she had gone to Pakistan to work as a model and that someone had put the narcotics into her luggage.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” she said admiring persons who spent time in cells and came out completely fine.
She also shed light on inmates’ behavior saying that she still woke up remembering the beating.
“I still have it [the experience] inside me. Now and then I remember how they woke us up, how the girls beat us, and how cold it was there. I had no medical help, I had to help myself, and I was crying. I’ll have it in me for the rest of my life.”
“Sometimes I close my eyes and feel what’s there again. How terrible we were.”
“No family, locked up like animals, humiliation. And I try to shake such thoughts out of my head right away, but sometimes it doesn’t go away right away,” she was quoted as saying in Daily Mail.
In 2019, she was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison. However, she was released in 2022 after a series of appeals.
Hluskova made some staggering revelations in four ‘confessional’ videos, where she shared her experience behind bars in Pakistan.
Hluskova also shared life in prison during the winter and summer seasons. “The summer was quiet, hot as in a sauna, so I soon sweated out the flu. You could have had a headache or tuberculosis.”
“But in winter? I was not warmed by a blanket, a sweatshirt, or hot tea. And on top of that a cold and a cough.”
