Lahore:
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sentenced 5 leaders of Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) to nine years of imprisonment every in a terror financing case.
Three of them — Umar Bahadar, Nasarullah and Samiullah — have been convicted for the initially time given that the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Lahore pronounced its verdict some time ago in the terror financing instances registered by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab police.
The other two — JuD spokesperson Yahya Mujahid and senior leader Prof Zafar Iqbal — had currently been convicted for a lot of years in other terror financing instances.
ATC Lahore Judge Ejaz Ahmad Buttar on Saturday handed down nine-year imprisonment to every 5 of them. The judge also ordered a six-month jail term to Saeed’s brother-in-law Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki in the exact same case.
“The court found the JuD/LeT leaders guilty of offence of terrorism financing. They had been collecting funds and unlawfully financing the proscribed organisation, LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba). The court has also ordered confiscation of assets made from funds collected through terrorism financing,” the CTD mentioned.
The JuD leaders had been presented in the court amid higher safety and the media was not permitted to cover the proceedings.
The CTD of Punjab Police had registered 41 FIRs against the JuD leaders, such as 70-year-old Saeed, in terror financing instances. The trial courts have so far decided 37 of them.
The ATC had sentenced the LeT founder, Saeed, for a collective imprisonment of 36 years on terror finance charges below sections 11-N of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 in 5 instances so far. Saeed’s jail terms will run concurrently. That indicates he will not keep in jail for a lot of years. He is serving his term in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail along with other convicted JuD leaders.
Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the LeT which is accountable for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 persons, such as six Americans.
Saeed, a UN designated terrorist whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty on, was arrested on July 17, 2019 final year in the terror financing instances.
The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. He was listed below the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.
The ATC Lahore had also sentenced LeT operation commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi for a collective imprisonment of 15 years on 3 counts in a terror financing case. He will have to serve in jail for 5 years as his sentence in 3 counts (5 years every) will run concurrently.
The international terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is instrumental in pushing Islamabad to take measures against terrorists roaming freely in Pakistan and making use of its territory to carry out attacks in India and elsewhere.
The Paris-based FATF placed Pakistan on the Grey List in June 2018 and asked Islamabad to implement a program of action to curb funds laundering and terror financing by the finish of 2019 but the deadline was extended later on due to COVID-19 pandemic. In February, the FATF retained Pakistan on its Grey List till June.
With Pakistan’s continuation in the “grey list”, the nation could locate it hard to get monetary help from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, hence additional enhancing complications for the money-strapped nation.