Mumbai attack mastermind jailed for 10 years in Pak terror cases

Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was on Thursday (November 19) sentenced to 10 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan in two cases related to terror.

Saeed and his two close aides — Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid — have been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years each, while Saeed’s brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki was sentenced to six months imprisonment, PTI reported.

He is wanted in India for planning the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008 in which 166 people were killed by 10 terrorists and hundreds were injured. Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

Related News: Pak court sentences Hafiz Saeed to 11 years in jail

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. The US has placed a $10 million bounty on him.

He was arrested in Pakistan on July 17 last year in cases related to terror financing. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court in February in two terror financing cases and is lodged at the Lahore’s high-security Kot Lakhpat jail.

“The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore on Thursday sentenced four leaders of Jamat-ud-Dawa, including its chief Hafiz Saeed, in two more cases,” a court official was quoted as saying by PTI.

“Judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta of ATC Court No 1 heard the case No 16/19 and 25/19 filed by Counter Terrorism Department in which the verdict has been announced after the statements of witnesses were cross-examined by Naseeruddin Nayyar and Mohammad Imran Fazal Gul Advocate,” the official added.

A total of 41 cases have been registered by the Counter Terrorism Department (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.