Pak court sentences 3 aides of Hafiz Saeed in two terror financing cases

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Thursday handed down up to 16 years imprisonment to three top leaders of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), including the brother-in-law of Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, in two cases of terror financing.

The Anti-Terrorism Court Lahore convicted Saeed's brother-in-law Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Zafar Iqbal and Muhammad Ashraf in two more cases of terror financing registered by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police.

The JuD leaders were present in the court as Presiding Judge Ijaz Ahmad Buttar announced the sentence in two cases of 2019. High security measures were taken at the court's premises.

A court official told PTI that Iqbal and Ashraf have been awarded a collective imprisonment of 16 years each in each case under different sections of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. Makki has been sentenced to one-year imprisonment in one case with a fine of Rs 170,000.

In September, the ATC Lahore handed down over 16 years imprisonment to Iqbal and Hafiz Abdus Salam, and one-and-a-half-year sentence to Makki in a separate terror financing case.

In February, Saeed was sentenced to a jail term of 11 years on terror finance charges by the ATC of Lahore. The court sentenced Saeed and his close aide Iqbal to five-and-a-half years each in two cases. A total of 11 years sentence will run concurrently.

Saeed is serving his term in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail. He was arrested in July last year.

The Counterterrorism Department of Punjab police had registered 23 FIRs against Saeed and his accomplices for terror financing in different cities of the province.

Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for Lashkar-e-Taiba which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

The US named Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10-million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.

He was listed as a terrorist under the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.