The mastermind behind the Mumbai terror attack and head of Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Hafiz Saeed, was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison by an anti-terror court in Lahore in two terrorist financing cases. Saeed is already in jail, as in February this year he was sentenced to 11 years in prison in two other terrorist financing cases. He is currently housed in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat High Security Prison.
“The Lahore Anti-Terrorism Tribunal (ATC) sentenced four Jamat-ud-Dawa leaders, including their boss Hafiz Saeed, in two more cases on Thursday,” a court official told PTI. Saeed and his two close associates, Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid, were sentenced to 10 and a half years each, while the brother-in-law of the JuD chief, Abdul Rehman Makki, was sentenced to six months in prison.
“ATC Court No. 1 Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta heard Cases No. 16/19 and 25/19 brought by the Counter-Terrorism Department in which the verdict was announced after Naseeruddin Nayyar and Mohammad Imran questioned the statements of the witnesses. Fazal Gul Advocate, “said the official.
The CTD has registered a total of 41 cases against JuD leaders, of which 24 have been resolved and the rest are pending in the ATC courts. So far four cases have been decided against Saeed. The JuD, led by Saeed, is the front organization for Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
The United States Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a specially designated global terrorist. It was included in the list of UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.
(With PTI inputs)
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