Hafiz Saaed had denied being the mastermind of the 2008 terror attacks on India’s financial capital © AFP/File / AAMIR QURESHI
Lahore, Pakistan, Feb 12 – The alleged mastermind of a deadly attack on India’s financial capital over a decade ago has been jailed in Pakistan for nearly six years on separate terror charges, his lawyer said Wednesday.
Hafiz Saeed was found guilty of “being part of a banned terrorist outfit” and for “having illegal property”, his lawyer Imran Gill told AFP
He is wanted in India for allegedly planning a shocking 2008 attack in Mumbai, when 10 Islamist militants armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and other explosives killed 166 people and injured hundreds more on a three-day rampage.
Lawyer Imran gill gave no details about Saeed’s conviction apart from saying he would be kept in prison in the eastern city of Lahore.
The firebrand cleric — declared a global terrorist by the United States and United Nations, and with a $10 million bounty on his head — is the leader of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Islamist charity.
Its militant wing Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed by Washington and Delhi to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks.
Saeed has denied involvement, but has spent years in and out of varying forms of detention in Pakistan, sometimes under house arrest, on various charges.
For the most part he has been free to move at will around the country, enraging India which has repeatedly called for his prosecution.
Saeed’s jailing comes as Pakistan faces potential blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — an anti-money-laundering monitor based in Paris — for failing to combat terror financing.
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