Lahore: Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was Thursday sentenced to 10 years in jail. Hafiz Saeed was handed over the sentence by an anti-terrorism court in two more terror cases.
Saeed is a UN designated terrorist whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty on. He was arrested July 17 last year in the terror financing cases. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in February this year in two terror financing cases. Currently Hazis is lodged at the Lahore’s high-security ‘Kot Lakhpat’ jail.
“The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore sentenced four leaders of JuD including its chief Hafiz Saeed, in two more cases,’ a court official told this agency.
Saeed and his two close aides – Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid – have been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years each. The JuD chief’s brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki was sentenced to six months imprisonment.
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“Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta of ATC Court No 1 heard the case No 16/19 and 25/19 filed by Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). The verdict has been announced after the statements of witnesses were cross-examined by advocates Naseeruddin Nayyar and Mohammad Imran Fazal,” the official said.
Forty one 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.
Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The LeT is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’. He was listed under the UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.