Hafiz Saeed, mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks gets 11 years jail term
The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) is the Punjab Province of Pakistan has sentenced the mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to 11 years of imprisonment in 2 cases of terror financing.
Co-Founder of Pakistan based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Chief of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah (JuD), Saeed is also a United Nations (U.N.) designated terrorist. In April 2012, the United States (U.S.) had announced a bounty of U.S. $ 10 million on Saeed for planning the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, which killed 166 civilians.
The 2 cases have been registered against him in Lahore and Gujranwala cities on the application of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police. The court sentenced Saeed to 5 ½ years and imposed a fine of Rs. 15,000 in each case. The sentences of both cases will run concurrently. For the records, Saeed was indicted for terror financing on December 11, 2019. Prior to this, he was arrested on July 17, 2019. He is currently lodged at the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail in high security.
During the proceedings, the prosecution produced more than 20 witnesses in the ATC who testified against Saeed and his close aides for their involvement in terror financing. The CTC had registered 23 FIRs against Saeed and his accomplices on the charges of terror financing in different cities of Punjab Province.
According to the CTD, the investigations were initiated in connection with implementation of U.N. Sanctions against these Designated Entities and Persons as directed by National Security Committee (NSC) of Pakistan in its meeting of January 1, 2019 chaired by the Prime Minister – Imran Khan.
However, the question remains that are 11 years of imprisonment sufficient for planning and plotting terror activities that took away 166 lives?
Most importantly, this could also be a tactic from Pakistan to avoid ‘blacklisting’ by Paris based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which had issued a stern warning to the terror promoting nation Pakistan, to swiftly comply with the complete 27 action points by February 2020 or face getting ‘blacklisted’.
The move by Pakistan gains significance as it comes ahead of FATF’s plenary scheduled from February 16-23, 2020. During the plenary, it will be decided whether to blacklist Pakistan or to retain them in the ‘Grey List’. Even if they are retained in ‘Grey List’, it would mean downgrading by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Union (E.U.). The downgrading will make it impossible for Pakistan to procure fresh funds to revive its economy.
