NEW DELHI, April 8: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan on Friday sentenced Mumbai terror attack mastermind and banned Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed to 32 years in jail in two more terror financing cases.
Earlier in five such cases, the 70-year-old radical cleric had already been convicted for 36 years imprisonment. The total sentence of 68 years imprisonment will run concurrently.
Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge Ejaz Ahmad Bhuttar handed down 32 years jail term to Saeed in two FIRs – 21/2019 and 90/2019 registered by the Counter Terrorism Department of Punjab Police. “In the 21/19 and 99/21, he was sentenced for 15.5 years and 16.5 years, respectively,” a court official said. The court also imposed a fine of PKR 340,000 on Saeed.
He said Saeed was brought to the court from the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore where he has been imprisoned since 2019 in strict security. Saeed, a UN-designated terrorist on whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty, was arrested on July 2019 in the terror financing cases. Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
(Manas Dasgupta)