Pakistani militant leader gets 5-year prison sentence for terrorism

The founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba armed militant, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, has been sentenced to a five and a half years jail term by a court in Lahore, Pakistan, over his involvement in terrorism financing.

Saeed was initially indicted in December last year on six charges under anti-terrorism laws, with verdicts still due in four other cases.

“Section 11-N of the Anti-Terrorism Act deals with possessing property, facilitating and fundraising … if a proscribed person or organisation holds a property, then that is considered being for the purpose of terrorism,” a prosecutor said.

“So on that basis the court has found sufficient evidence and convicted Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Saeed on two counts each.”

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Counsel to the convict, Imran Gill, said his client was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for being a member of a “proscribed organisation” under Pakistani law, and another five years for a charge related to ownership of “illegal property.”

Gill added that Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed at least 160 people, was sentenced on Wednesday.

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