Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was on Thursday sentenced to 10 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in two terror financing cases.
Saeed, a UN designated terrorist with a $10 million US bounty, was arrested on July 17, 2019, in the terror financing cases. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in February this year in two cases.
The 70-year-old JuD chief is in Lahore’s high-security Kot Lakhpat jail.
“The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore on Thursday sentenced four JuD leaders, including its chief Hafiz Saeed, in two more cases,” a court official said.
Saeed and his two close aides — Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid — have been sentenced to 10 and a half years each, while JuD chief’s brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
“Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta of ATC Court No. 1 heard the case filed by the Counter Terrorism Department in which the verdict has been announced after the statements of witnesses were cross-examined,” the official said.
A total of 41 cases have been registered by the CTD against the JuD leaders, out of which 24 have been decided while the rest are pending in the ATC courts. Four cases have been decided against Saeed so far.
Thursday’s sentencing comes weeks after Paris-based global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog — the Financial Action Task Force — retained Pakistan on its grey list till February, 2021, as Islamabad had failed to fulfil the agency’s six key obligations, including failure to take action against two of India’s most wanted terrorists — Saeed and Maulana Masood Azhar.
The Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.